


Don’t You Forget About Me

by TaeAelin



Series: Adam and Nigel [7]
Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannigram AU - Fandom, Spacedogs - Fandom, The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Anxiety, Aspergers, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug refs, Fic and Art collab, First Kiss, M/M, Senior year, Slow Burn, Stargazing, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6661486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaeAelin/pseuds/TaeAelin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam isn’t used to making new friends. Especially friends that are always getting into really, <em>really</em> big trouble. But after spending a Saturday in detention, Adam starts to realise there’s more to his classmates then their labels. And, making it through high school isn’t always about following the rules.</p>
<p>
  <em>A seniors vs. the system Spacedogs Breakfast Club AU</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Detention

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story started my short fics thread and is now happily getting out of hand, so all additional chapters will follow here. If you’ve already read parts 1 and 2, they are reposted for ref (or in case anyone missed them! <3), but the next bit is chapter 3. Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on this, I am so grateful for your encouragement!
> 
> All art by nebulavra, (I cannot thank you enough!! :"). Title from the 1985 single of the same name by Simple Minds, which is the theme song for The Breakfast Club.

Adam blinked at the clock on the wall. 9:02am and the principal still hadn’t arrived. He knew it was a Saturday. And detention wasn’t actually class. But they were at school. They were in the library, to be exact. And when you were at school, in the library, and the principal had _said_ that detention would commence at 9:00am, and it _didn’t_ commence at 9:00am…

Adam fidgeted in his chair, unable to stop looking from his wristwatch, to his phone, to the wall clock again. He could feel his heart beating a little faster, making that uncomfortable humming sensation at his throat. Andrew Clarke was making a loud clicking noise with his chewing gum. Adam wanted to cover his ears, or ask if he could please stop. He didn’t consider either of these actions unreasonable, but then again, that was a very similar thought to the one that had landed him in detention in the first place.

9:03am. Adam couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed his desk back, intending only to stand up and give himself some room to breathe. Instead, the flimsy wooden table tipped over completely, sending his notepaper and assorted stationary clattering to the floor, not to mention the colossal bang of the desk that followed. Leaping back in alarm, Adam’s hands flew to his mouth as he took in the mistake, the rest of his peers silent and staring at him.

That was when the principal walked in.

He was a new principal. _In it for himself_ , was how the rest of senior form described him. Adam still wasn’t quite sure why, but he had to admit, the teacher really didn’t smile very much. And he definitely wasn’t smiling now.

“Who did this?”

Adam couldn’t help but feel he was the obvious culprit, standing red-faced in front of the expanding mess. But he also knew he too sometimes needed clarification on things that seemed to make sense to everyone else. He only wished his throat wasn’t so tight, so he could actually answer.

“Let’s try again. When I ask a question-”

“I did.”

Several sets of eyes flicked to the edge of the room, including Adam’s. He hadn’t even noticed the student sitting there, all sprawled over his chair like he was melting, glaring at them from beneath some tangled windswept curtain that Adam assumed was hair.

The principal was smiling now at least. Adam wasn’t convinced he was very happy though, as his voice fell several tones lower.

“Is that so, Vilkas? From all the way up the back too. I’m sure it was quite the party trick.”

 _Vilkas._ Adam recognised the name from the soccer team lists in the school yearbook. _Nigel_ Vilkas, from the grade above.

“I’ll give you an encore, if you’re so fuckin’ keen.” Nigel had nodded toward the empty desk at Adam’s side, a murmur of amusement ripping round the room.

Adam knotted his eyebrows. He had no idea what encore Nigel was referring to, the closest the taller boy had ever come to knocking over a desk was… well, lying about knocking over a desk.

“Congratulations Vilkas, booked yourself next weekend too. Another word and it’ll be four of a kind.”

Adam was still trying to swallow as the detention assignment task got chalked up on the board, the library door slamming rather vigorously on their head teacher’s exit. To his surprise, Adam actually felt more relieved now that they were comparatively alone again, even if it did break from routine. Quietly, he pulled the desk back into place, scooping together his pens resetting each one on the surface according to colour and size. When he looked back up, half his spilled notepaper had been placed there too.

The other half was still on the ground. And right beside it was Nigel, mixing lined with grid and double-spaced with plain. Adam squeezed shut his eyes, taking a deep breath and trying very hard not to appear as horrified as he felt. When he opened them, he saw Nigel had stopped sorting, placing the papers slowly down and frowning at his lap.

Adam could have burst into tears. The incident with the desk was humiliating enough. Now Nigel was surely going to ask him why he was behaving so oddly over a couple of papers, and nothing about his explanation would ever fix it. Sometimes Adam _wished_ he didn’t care about things like papers, or things running on time, or-

“So how’d you land a Saturday anyway?”

Adam felt his mouth un-scrunch. Nigel was reclining against the desk opposite, long legs stretched across the floor, crossed at the ankles. The question had sounded a bit mumbled, and Adam now saw that was because he had a cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth, lighter at the ready.

“I… said the wrong thing to the substitute teacher. Well, it was the right thing, actually, I mean, if you take into account current astro-theories. The models presented in our handout were very outdated.”

Adam crumpled his nose, not used to anyone smoking right next to him, even if Nigel was holding it aside. But Nigel looked very relaxed, even if he was breaking several school rules. It made Adam feel strangely at ease too, enough to attempt a smile at least. Nigel gave one back, kind of unevenly. Actually, more like a twitch at the corner of his mouth. The more Adam thought about it, the more he wondered if it hadn’t actually been some momentary spasm. And now he was offering the cigarette.

“Oh. Thank you.” Hesitating, Adam reached for the stick. He had always considered smoking a bit gross, and, if he were honest with himself, sort of pointless. But it felt different, being asked if he wanted to do something, rather than it being assumed that he didn’t. He held on, pinching the paper rather awkwardly between his thumb and forefinger and taking the smallest of sips.

“And how did you… _land_ _a Saturday_?” Adam didn’t think the phrase flowed quite the same when he said it, but he supposed it didn’t help that he started coughing incredibly violently halfway through. Eyes watering, he tried to give Nigel a thumbs-up. Nigel raised an eyebrow, then gently retrieved the smoke, crushing the butt against the leg of the table.

“Being a smartass? I dunno. I’m losing track.”

“You almost broke my fucking nose, Vilkas.”

Adam flinched in alarm. He’d been so focused on Nigel that he’d completely forgotten there were other students in the room at all. And now Andrew Clarke was standing over them, eyes narrowing and legs spread wide.

Nigel didn’t seem at all put out. Glancing up, he gave a leisurely wink, raising his hand to mime a gunshot. “Ah. Yep, that’s the one. Cheers, pal.”

“For no reason at all,” Andrew huffed, not looking like he was about to move anytime soon.

“You said you wanted to fight.”

“I said you couldn’t beat me in a _wrestling match_. As in, standard fighting circle, standard federation rules.”

The way Andrew was crossing his arms made Adam wonder if he kept a copy of said rules down his varsity jacket, ready to pull out in instances just like this. When no such book emerged, he turned back to Nigel, whose mouth was doing that crooked pulling thing again.

 _Spasm_ , Adam decided. _Definitely a spasm._

“Well, darling, if you wanted to roll around with me on a mat, should have said so in the first-”

A loud bang echoed over the tail of the remark, Adam jumping out of his skin for what felt like the tenth time that morning. It seemed the principal was no less able to come and go quietly than Andrew was able to look at Nigel and breathe in reasonable quantities. Nigel hadn’t even blinked.

“Back to your seat, Clarke.”

Glare dropping to his shoes, Andrew did as he was told.

“And you, Vilkas.”

Without meaning to, Adam gave a low whimper, liking the idea of being left up the front with the head teacher less and less. He could feel himself blushing as Nigel flicked him a glance. For the first time, the older boy actually looked surprised.

“Catch you round, kid,” he muttered, dragging himself to his feet.

“It’s Adam,” Adam blurted, far too loudly in the silent space, “I know your first name’s Nigel, and that you’re in the Soccer A team, but I’m not in any teams, or… clubs, so… um, you… might not see my name anywhere, but it’s Adam.”

From the snigger that travelled around the room, Adam realised he had spoken for longer than was considered normal or appropriate. But he couldn’t take it back, just like he couldn’t take back correcting the substitute, or flipping the desk, or-

“Cool. Catch you round then, Adam.”

As Nigel slouched back into his original spot, Adam noticed no-one was laughing anymore. The principal hadn’t in the first place. But he did seem to be staring at Nigel rather hard.

“He isn’t on the soccer team anymore, Raki,” the teacher purred. “Have to maintain at least a C-point average for that privilege.”

Adam smiled over his shoulder, expecting Nigel to snap back with some clever remark. Instead, Nigel just seemed to be staring at the front wall, not really seeing it. The meaning of the words sinking in, Adam’s face slowly fell.

“And has someone been _smoking_ in here?”

Pulse quickening, Adam kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the desk in front of him, crossing his fingers to prevent somehow letting on that he knew.

“Clarke. Answer me. Who was smoking?”

Adam bit his tongue in despair. Andrew had definitely seen. And from his recent exchange with Nigel, he was pretty sure they weren’t on favourable terms.

“Beats me.”

Adam let out the breath he was holding. Did Andrew just _lie_?

“Raki.”

Adam felt his legs turn to jelly.

“Was someone smoking in this library?”

Adam gripped the edges of his desk, knuckles turning white. He could’ve sworn he could hear the ticking of the second hand on the clock above them. Or maybe it was his heartbeat, whirring at his eardrums.

“Yes.”

The principal broke into a wide smile, triumphant. “Who?”

Adam made an incoherent sound, then cleared his throat, trying again.

“Me.”

The teacher’s expression tightened somewhat, even more so when Andrew snorted a laugh.

“You. You, are telling me that you, Adam Raki, smoked in this library?”

Adam nodded solemnly, feeling slightly more confident despite the fact that his hands were shaking worse than a milkshake mixer. He wasn’t sure the principal even believed him. But that didn’t matter. It was true. He took another gulp of air.

“I… I can give you a demonstration, if you’re so very keen.”

When the room echoed with amusement for a second time, Adam felt there was something different about it to before. He had heard plenty of people laugh at the things he said for the wrong reasons. This time, he felt he had said the right thing, at the right time. But more importantly…

For the right reason.

A red slip of paper smacked on the desk in front of him. Another Saturday.

Gathering the last of his courage, or recklessness, or both, Adam peeked toward the back of the class. Nigel was already staring at him, sitting far straighter than Adam had yet seen, expression just as uneven.

“Catch you round, Nigel,” Adam managed.

Nigel smiled back. With both sides of his mouth this time.

-


	2. Suspension

It wasn’t always easy to notice people around the hallways when you kept your eyes glued to the ground. But Nigel was the kind of person who made himself noticed. And the kind of person you missed when he was gone.

Adam glanced up from his salad roll. Across the cafeteria, he could see Claire Standish sitting with her friends, laughing over something in a magazine. He’d thought about writing her a note, but then, they never sat close enough in class for him to be able to give it her. And besides, he really needed an answer back.

The group stopped talking as Adam approached, the magazine slipped beneath a textbook that didn’t quite cover it.

“Hi Adam?”

“Hi Claire.”

Adam tried not to leave too long a gap in between the greeting and everything else he had practiced in his head, but it was a lot trickier with everyone staring at him. He took a deep breath.

“I was wondering if you knew where Nigel Vilkas was. He didn’t turn up for Saturday detention on the weekend, and I haven’t seen him at his locker. And there are significantly less people smoking behind the science block this week too, compared to usual, I mean, which was quite a lot. So I just thought you might know, because I saw you two together that one time, and you looked extremely close, and-”

“Adam _, Adam,_ ” Claire appeared to be trying to shake her head, and also speak without actually opening her mouth. Adam fell silent as one of her companions giggled, and Claire shot a glare across the table.

“I don’t know where he is,” she said quietly, “I just know that he got suspended.”

Adam blinked. Somehow, he felt the information should have made more sense to him. In fact, it was probably the _only_ scenario that hadn’t played out in his mind. And, now that it was, it made his chest feel a lot tighter than all the others.

“Oh. Okay.”

Adam turned around and walked out of the lunchroom. He was already halfway down the stairs to the science labs before Claire caught him, satchel banging against her knees as she came to a breathless halt.

“Adam, hold up! Where you going?”

“To class.” Adam answered, the bell ringing over his words.

“Right.” Claire bit her lip, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was glancing from side to side, and Adam began wondering if he had been remiss in their earlier exchange.

“Thank you for telling me about Nigel,” he added, realising he might have ended the conversation too abruptly.

“No no, it’s cool,” Claire did a half-smile. Adam smiled too, until he realised that was the kind of smile Nigel usually did, which somehow made the expression slip away from him. As he made to leave, Claire reached a hand toward his arm, which made him twitch without meaning to.

“Sorry,” Adam said quickly. He didn’t actually mind friendly gestures with people he knew, but he found it hard not to get a surprise, if he didn’t know when they were going to happen.

Which was usually… always.

“What? No, don’t be.” Claire looked upset, and Adam wished he had the right words to explain that he was okay, and knew she was just trying to be nice. He reached out to pat her arm instead, not quite sure it was as reassuring as he intended. Especially as her expression now kind of reminded him of when a soccer ball hit him in the stomach and he couldn’t breathe for five minutes after.

“Um, would you like some water?” Adam frowned at the drinking fountain at the bottom of the stairwell, remembering that seemed to help at the time.

“Oh, no,” Claire wiped her eyes, giving a small laugh. “Adam, listen. I just…”

“Hey! _Claire!_ Found your replacement for the prom pretty quick huh?” A kid Adam didn’t recognise barrelled past them, jerking his thumb toward Adam.

“No, and it still won’t be you, jerkwad,” Claire scoffed back, rolling her eyes in disgust when the older boy mimed getting shot in the heart, complete with some fairly grotesque choking noises.

“Idiot,” she shook her head, facing back to Adam. “Look, I just wanted to say something. Like, tell you something. About Nigel.”

“Okay.” Even whilst he knew class was about to start, Adam suddenly felt a lot less fidgety.

“It’s just that… yeah. I don’t know if you know him all that well, but… he’s a senior. And he’s graduating in like a few months. If he even comes back at all.”

Adam blinked, not completely sure he was following, but memorising Claire’s phrasing to consider later.

“So it’s just… I don’t know. You just… seem really nice. And smart. I mean, I’ve seen you in accelerated math and everything.”

“It’s not very hard, once you understand the basic principles,” Adam ventured, unsure if Claire was trying to ask for help with her homework.

“Yeah, once you understand the actual hard bit,” Claire laughed, interrupting herself. Adam grinned. They both stood a little less stiffly.

“I think what I’m trying to say...” Claire fished her hands into her skirt pockets, her gaze moving from the floor to Adam’s eyes. “Is that Nigel’s an interesting guy, you know? But he’s also kind of messed up. And… he’s the kind of guy who can mess you up. And he’s going to be gone soon anyway, even if he _wasn’t_ caught carrying, so-”

“Wait,” Adam had to ask, or he knew he wouldn’t figure it out later. “What do you mean, caught carrying? What was he carrying?”

“ _Raki!_ Standish! Not who I’d expect to find loitering in the hallways between class.”

Adam jumped at the familiar tone, the school principal’s voice thundering down the stairs behind them. Claire flinched in distress.

“Let’s go,” she hissed, urging Adam to move as well. “But that’s exactly what I mean.”

“What is?” Adam hurried to keep up with her as they skimmed the steps, the principal’s footsteps echoing in the narrow passageway behind.

“I mean,” she whispered, ducking toward the language labs while he veered toward science block. “That’s _exactly_ the kind of thing you don’t want to find out.”

-

It wasn’t that hard to find Nigel’s address. According to the telephone book, weren’t many Vilkas’s in the whole of the state, let alone within a reasonable radius of the school.

Knocking on the front door… well, that was a lot harder.

Pushing open the gate, Adam couldn’t help but think the house wasn’t what he had expected. Nigel was always wearing something torn, scuffed or otherwise ill-fitting at school, his too-big boots and too-tight jeans usually causing some kind of fuss when it came to yearbook photograph day. But this house, if anything, was neat. There weren’t any leaflets scattered around the mailbox, nor stray shoes on the front steps. The blinds were all closed. Adam didn’t really think it looked like anyone lived there at all.

He had paced around outside for a few minutes before realising he probably looked rather suspicious, trying to see if there was a tiny crack in any of the windows. It had also been a very long bicycle ride to the opposite side of town, and he really really needed to use the bathroom. Holding his breath, Adam gave a loud thump on the door.

There was no answer.

The adrenaline sifting out of his system, he started to feel a bit silly. The phone book had also listed a telephone number, which he could’ve easily called instead of turning up unannounced. Wondering what on earth he was going to do about a lavatory, he gave a desperate glance at some of the pot plants near the front gate, feeling like this was the very opposite of the sort of gesture he’d hoped to extend his new acquaintance.

Behind him there was a sudden scraping noise, and Adam wheeled around to see Nigel wrenching the door open. His eyebrows were pinched together at the middle, quickly pulling upward as he saw Adam.

“What the fuck?”

Adam exhaled, insurmountably relieved Nigel hadn’t waited a minute longer.

“Hello,” Adam started, trying not to be thrown by Nigel’s unusual greeting. “I noticed you haven’t been at school, so I brought you some homework. May I please use your toilet?”

Nigel blinked, still entirely blocking the doorway.

“If it’s alright with your parents, I mean?” Adam squirmed from one foot to the other.

“They’re not home,” Nigel stepped back, still looking somewhat lost for words. “Up the stairs, second on the left.”

Adam scrambled past, remembering to call out a thank-you before slamming the door shut behind him. It wasn’t until he was washing his hands that Adam realised he must’ve left his backpack on the front steps, having taken it off whilst trying to catch a glimpse through the windows. That and seven senior-level textbooks did get awfully heavy after a while.

Not used to being forgetful, Adam felt more than a little nervous when he stepped out of the bathroom. The feeling faded as soon as he saw Nigel waiting for him, backpack slung over his shoulder. He wasn’t looking quite so shocked as when he first saw Adam, and gave a jerk of his head toward the room at the end of the hall.

“You ‘right?”

“Much better, thank you,” Adam said sincerely, following Nigel into his bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was rather large… and rather empty.

Swinging the textbooks onto the floor, Nigel sprawled himself just as untidily beside, back against the wall, legs stretched every which way. When Adam remained standing in the middle of the room, he kicked aside some clothes, which left a small space for Adam to sit cross-legged.

“We’re not in the same classes though,” Nigel grimaced toward the schoolbooks, looking rather like he’d have preferred to kick those aside instead.

“I know. Which is why I checked the classlists on the board outside the staffroom, and brought you the weekly readings from _your_ classes.”

Nigel made a noise that sounded halfway between a laugh and being strangled.

“Fuckin’ making my day here, Adam.”

Adam gave a tentative smile, not quite sure if Nigel was joking. Nigel didn’t seem _unhappy_ to see him, but it was hard enough to tell what people were thinking in general, let alone when he really wanted to. Luckily, he had already considered the possibility that Nigel may not be in the mood to do classwork, and had already pre-prepared several topics of conversation for if that were the case.

“I hear the senior prom is coming up,” Adam raised his intonation a little at the end of the sentence, which was a way to let someone know he was curious to hear their thoughts on the matter.

“Yeah. Not for anyone who’s currently suspended though.”

“Oh.” That threw Adam off-track. He hadn't even considered it.

“S’fine,” Nigel added, slightly gentler. “Was only going to piss Claire’s father off anyway.”

“Claire Standish?” Adam blurted, suddenly remembering the obnoxious comment about her not having a date.

“Yeah.” Nigel raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask anything further.

“Why would you taking Claire to the dance annoy her father?” Adam continued. It wasn’t the course he’d expected the discussion to take, but he was genuinely curious.

Nigel snorted, his gaze falling to his lap when Adam tilted his head to one side, solemn.

“Guess I’m not the kind of guy he’d like to see her with. Probably why she asked me.”

“But would you like to go with her?” Adam encouraged, tugging the sleeves of his cardigan down over his hands.

“Christ, I dunno Adam, would _you_?” Nigel crossed and uncrossed his legs, which made Adam think leaning against the wall wasn’t a very comfortable position.

“No, I’m happy going by myself.” Adam reached for one of the stray pillows that had fallen off the bed. He offered it to Nigel to put behind his back, a gesture which only seemed to confuse the older student.

“Cheers,” Nigel mumbled, finally getting the idea. After a short silence, he cleared his throat. “Hey, do you want anything? Like, a coke, or a beer or something?”

“Yes.” Adam brimmed to a smile. In truth, he wasn’t thirsty, but he understood Nigel was trying to be friendly, and he wanted to be friendly back.

“Uh, so, beer? Or I could find some vodka, if that’s more your-”

“Do you have lemon soda?” Adam interrupted, realising what Nigel had actually asked.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Nigel grinned, dragging himself to his feet and out the door.

Adam could hear his boots thumping all the way down the stairs. Humming, he bounced his knees a little, his hands wandering to his backpack. Unbuckling the main section, he slid the textbooks onto Nigel’s rug. Some were his own, others he had borrowed from the library. Adam had bookmarked the sections that were being covered that week, and summarised some of the text from the one on physics, which he had found particularly verbose and not a good way of explaining fusion reactions at all.

Carefully, Adam moved a few more of Nigel’s belongings aside so that he could arrange the books in the order the subjects ran on the timetable, so Nigel would know which ones to read first. Despite the fact most of his personal effects were all over the floor, Adam decided he liked Nigel’s things. There were a lot of mobile phones, more than he thought was usual for one person to have. They all looked new, some still even in the boxes. But more intriguing were the things that looked a bit worn- there was one of those brain yo-yos that you could do tricks with, and also a magazine on how to fix motorbikes. Poking out from under the bed was some sort of ball of fluff, and on tugging it, Adam saw it was a very old stuffed toy; a sausage dog with floppy ears. It looked almost as chewed as if it _had_ belonged to a dog, rather than Nigel.

Concluding it would be better to return the toy to the spot he found it rather than have Nigel find him playing with it, Adam squeezed it back under the bed frame, next to a more unusual object. Frowning, Adam leaned his face to the floor. It was dark at the edge of the bed, but it looked like a plastic ziplock full of icing sugar. Adam didn’t know why he found it so fascinating, nor did he feel very good about himself after realising he was poking around in Nigel’s private things. Sitting back up, he refocused his attention on the magazine about motorbikes, flipping to a very detailed diagram of engine parts that he quite liked.

Nigel pushed open the door, a glass of Coca-Cola in each hand. Seeing the magazine in Adam’s lap, his mouth fell open in alarm.

“That isn’t mine.”

“Okay,” Adam said hurriedly, not sure why Nigel’s cheeks seemed to be turning a shade more pink. Trying to smooth things over, he tried very hard to think of something funny. “I won’t ask you to fix my bicycle then.”

Nigel was still frozen in the doorway, one side of his lip quirking upward. “What?”

“My… bicycle. I… won’t ask you to fix it. Since you… uh, might not know how to fix other two-wheeled methods of transportation.” Adam flashed Nigel the cover of the magazine, less sure he was making any sense at all, let alone an amusing comment.

On seeing the cover however, Nigel’s whole face seemed to un-crumple with relief, and he gave a low chuckle anyway.

“Shit. Yeah, okay, that’s mine. But don’t ask me to fix your bike, an engine is way different. I mean, I can give it a fuckin’ good shot, but-”

“My bicycle isn’t broken,” Adam piped in, feeling very much like he had over-complicated the situation. “I may have been trying to make a joke. To, um, make you feel better.”

Nigel stared at him, blank. Then, slowly curved to a grin.

“Right. Well. Guess it worked, huh?”

Adam’s tummy did a small flippy-flop. Nigel knelt down beside him, handing him one of the glasses of coke.

“There wasn’t any lemonade.”

“Oh, that’s okay, this is great.” Adam meant it, slurping enthusiastically at the side of his drink before he had a chance to spill any on the carpet.

“Brought you this though,” Nigel winked as he pulled a green plastic bottle from his back pocket. “Case you wanna get real fancy.”

Accepting the offering, Adam frowned as he read the label. _100% reconstituted lime juice. Great for cooking and cocktails._

“You can add it to the coke, if you want,” Nigel explained, hopeful. “And then it’ll taste like lime coke? Which is sort of like lemon coke? Which is sort of like lemonade?”

Adam had never tried a lime coke, and though he strongly suspected that would taste absolutely _nothing_ like lemonade, he appreciated the gesture enough to want to try.

“No stopping you with the homework then?” Nigel made a face toward the tower of books, though Adam thought he was possibly trying to be funny too.

“Something to entertain you when I’ve gone home.” Adam stuck his tongue out a little, focused on measuring out ten lime drops into his drink, which the label recommended for a mojito.

“Don’t let it stress you out,” Adam added a bit more quietly, seeing Nigel emptying a greater volume of the liquid into his own drink than he’d thought there was room. “Just… try your best?”

He wasn’t actually sure that was very helpful advice, but it was something his tutors always said when they were trying to be encouraging, and he thought it might make more sense to Nigel than it did to him.

“Yeah,” Nigel muttered, concentrating rather hard on his drink. “But what if you do that, and it’s still a fucking fail?”

Adam sipped at the edge of his glass, considering. “Ask for help?”

He didn’t understand Nigel’s expression, and for the first time, wasn’t entirely sure Nigel agreed when he gave a curt nod, trying to smile.

“Yeah.”

Adam took another slurp of the soda, trying to figure out if he had made Nigel upset. The end-of-year exams were another topic he’d imagined they could talk about, however looking at Nigel’s face, something made him decide to skip that one. He was just about to comment that the reconstituted lime juice did actually make for a pleasant drinking sensation, when Nigel took a rather large gulp of his own, swallowing just as quickly whilst his eyes watered profusely.

“Jesus fucking-” he put the glass down, though Adam couldn’t understand the rest of his swearing through all the coughing. Adam pulled his bottled water free from the side compartment of his backpack, unscrewing the cap and offering it.

“-m’alright,” Nigel managed, swiping his mouth on the back of his wrist. “Okay. That stuff is fucking awful.”

“I think you just put too much,” Adam giggled, swapping the water for his own glass. “Want to try mine?”

“We’re not sharing a fuckin’ soda,” Nigel laughed, though Adam thought he maybe sounded like he just needed some more coaxing.

“Or maybe you could add some of the icing sugar from under your bed?”

Adam knew he’d said the wrong thing the second it came out. It was Nigel’s room, Nigel’s things, and from the way Nigel jerked to his feet, definitely not one Nigel needed offered to him.

“What the fuck, Adam!”

The phrase sounded a lot different now to when Nigel had first seen Adam outside his house. A lot louder, almost like he was spitting each word. It made Adam’s heart beat a little faster, and he put his drink down, hands unsteady.

“I… I just saw… I… there was a stuffed dog and-”

“Did you take some of that?” Nigel exploded, suddenly looking frightened. “Tell me right this fucking second, did you take any?”

“No, no, I didn’t open it, I promis-”

“Well don’t!” Nigel yelled, his hand movements getting more and more vigorous. “Don’t ever touch my fucking stuff, okay!”

“Nigel, can you please stop shouting?”

Adam could feel his breathing getting quicker, the words and sounds making less and less sense. He tried to cover his ears with his hands, but it only made everything seem to echo more.

“Why are you even here?!” Nigel bellowed. “You don’t even fucking know me, what the fuck do you care whether I do my fucking homework!”

“ _Stop shouting, stop shouting,_ ” Adam chanted under his breath, rocking back and forth.

“I might not even be allowed back into the fucking school!”

Nigel looked like he was just about ready to throw something when Adam did it first, swiping his arm into the neat pile of textbooks and sending them flying across the floor.

“Stop shouting stop shouting _stop shouting!_ ”

Nigel halted mid-inhale, staring at the scattered papers. Adam leapt to his feet, swaying feverishly from side to side whilst caging his fingers through his hair, heels of his hands pressed into his eyes.

“ _Stop shouting stop shouting_ -”

“Adam-”

Nigel’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away, though Adam was almost certain he hadn’t left the room.

“Please look at me-”

Adam couldn’t look at anything except the insides of his eyelids, squeezed so tightly shut that the world looked like stars. Unable to stop moving nor repeating the words over and over, he was taking a shuddering breath when he felt Nigel place a hand on his upper back. Gently, Nigel closed his arms around him, pulling his smaller frame against his chest.

“Adam, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Just when he thought he couldn’t feel any more ridiculous, Adam stopped mumbling as soon as Nigel had started speaking, some horrible-sounding sob escaping as he realised he was crying instead.

“It’s alright, you’re alright…”

Adam could have sworn Nigel was rubbing his back as he sniffled into his shirt, feeling very much like he was making a terrible mess of everything, but not sure what else to do.

“I threw your textbooks across the room,” Adam choked, filled with regret.

“Darling…” Nigel murmured, not letting go. “…I’ve wanted to do that since you got here.”

Adam stilled for a second, then pulled back, surprised. Nigel was smirking. A bit nervously, Adam thought, but it was enough to make him splutter in some kind of amusement too. Nigel twitched a glance to his left.

“The window’s open, if you wanna help them go a little further.”

Seeing Nigel wink, Adam felt he could have almost laughed.

“I’m sorry I came around unannounced. I do care whether you pass or fail, but that wasn’t why I came.” He paused to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his cardigan, hoping very much that Nigel wouldn’t choose that moment to glance at his shirt. “I… wanted to visit you because I thought we could be friends.”

“Friends.” Nigel repeated, which made Adam wonder if perhaps that wasn’t a dreadfully unfeasible idea after all. He had once seen some of Nigel’s friends behind the sport sheds at school, but most looked a lot older, and he suspected had graduated some years back.

“Yes. Like, sometimes hang out and stuff.”

Nigel sat down at the edge of his bed, tracing his tongue against the front of his teeth as he seemed to be thinking it over. Then he lay back, glaring up at the ceiling as if it could somehow offer some advice on the matter. Noticing some clean takeaway napkins amongst the assorted debris on Nigel’s bedside table, Adam picked his way across the floor to reach them, hoping Nigel wouldn’t mind.

“Guess I could do that,” Nigel muttered, seemingly to no one in particular.

Adam paused halfway through blowing his nose, trying to get a better handle on the statement.

“You guess you could, or you would like to?” He thought his voice sounded a bit funny and muffled, but Nigel propped himself back up, getting the gist of it.

“I would like to.”

“Oh. Great,” Adam beamed. He felt happier than he had all day, despite being fairly exhausted. Nigel smiled back at him, then tried to shake his hair out of his eyes.

“Sure you couldn’t go a vodka? I feel pretty fucking bad about… uh-”

“You don’t need to feel bad,” Adam said quickly. “I’m alright. I can get into a panic, when I get upset. But you didn’t know that. And you apologised.”

“I mean it,” Nigel mumbled, in a rougher voice than before. “Shouldn’t have lost it like that.”

“I know.” Adam stated, which made Nigel’s mouth twitch up at the corner. “But I forgive you. Sometimes friends have misunderstandings. But… I would like to understand you.”

“Yeah…” Nigel said weakly, not knowing where to look.

“At this moment though, I have to get home. I was kind of supposed to be home by six.”

Checking his mobile, Nigel flinched in surprise to see it was almost eight.

“Shit. No kidding. You need me to walk you or anything?”

“No, I’ll be riding my bicycle.” Adam smiled, hoping the next part of the sentence would come out as he intended. “The bicycle that isn’t broken.”

When Nigel grinned, he knew it had.

“Well, text me when you get home or something, yeah?”

“I don’t have a cellular phone,” Adam admitted, scrunching up his nose on recalling the fact. “My parents confiscated it for getting two detentions in a row.”

“Huh,” Nigel swept a hand to the floor, picking up one of the brand new boxes Adam had seen earlier and lobbing it to him. “Now you do.”

Adam was too taken aback to say anything, not having expected a gift of any sort, let alone something quite expensive.

“This too,” Nigel fished a sim card from his pocket, then snatched a pen and scrap of paper off his bedside to write something down.

Adam tucked the sim safely in his jeans, then read the paper. There were two numbers on it.

“The first one’s yours,” Nigel explained.

“And the second one?”

“Mine, Adam.” Nigel raised an eyebrow, looking vaguely embarrassed. “So text me when you get back, right?”

“Right,” Adam nodded, following Nigel back down the stairs. The whole idea of it gave him such butterflies that he doubted he would think of anything else on ride home at all.

As Nigel leant against the front door frame, Adam decided to give him another hug. Since Nigel had already done that, he figured it must be okay. Nigel stood rather stiffly at first, but then squeezed back tighter than he’d done before, pressing his face into Adam’s neck.

“When are your parents getting home? It’s late.” Adam spoke into Nigel’s shoulder, feeling quite flushed as they pulled apart.

“Hm? Ah. Some time.” Nigel stayed put while Adam clipped on his helmet, kicking the standing brake off the bike. “Don’t worry about me. You just take care riding back.”

“I will,” Adam nodded, then took a small gulp of air, knowing if he didn’t ask now, he never would. “Nigel, was that why you were suspended? Did you bring that packet under the bed to school?”

Nigel didn’t look away, or put his hands in his pockets, or yell, or any of the other things Adam might have anticipated as a reaction to him bringing it up again. He held Adam’s gaze, steady.

“No. I know I’ve given you fuck-all reason to believe me, but I never brought that packet anywhere near the school, and I swear to god I never would. I was suspended because our principal said he found weed in my locker. But I don’t smoke any of that shit, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t stash it there if I did.”

“But why would he say that if it didn’t happen?” Adam felt very unsettled by the knowledge, even more so that it didn’t actually strike him as false.

“I don’t know.” Nigel did break his stare then, his face creasing to something Adam didn’t recognise, just as swiftly trying to smile. “I don’t know.”

Adam wheeled his bike to the pavement, giving Nigel a small wave when he got to the gate. Nigel raised a hand in return. He was still standing in the doorway when Adam glanced over his shoulder halfway down the street.

When Adam finally pulled up on his front lawn, before he’d stowed his bike in the garage or even told his parents he was home, he took out the new mobile and fixed it up with the sim. Then he found Nigel’s number, fingers still trembling as he keyed it in.

_I believe you._

_-_


	3. Gatecrashing

Adam was securing his bicycle at the gates when he heard the cheering. There was blue and yellow confetti scattered across the school steps too. And a string of flags with the school motto strung up in the main hallway. And a large group of his peers in varsity jackets, all whooping and yelling as Andrew Clarke performed some strange slow motion replay of throwing someone down to the ground.

“Is all this for… end of year exams?” Adam blinked, noticing Claire Standish staring at Andrew with quite possibly as much confusion as him.

“What? Hey! No,” Claire laughed, her incredulous expression softening on seeing Adam. “We just came first in the regional wrestling championships.”

“Next stop, state!” Andrew hollered, pushing his way through the crowd.

“Hopefully a _very_ far away state.” Claire rolled her eyes.

Andrew seemed to find the comment uproariously funny, sidling up to them all grinning and flushed.

“Standish, you coming to this thing at mine tonight or what?”

“Umm, let me see… no.”

As an exchange of disparaging remarks continued, Adam’s gaze travelled over Claire’s shoulder, back toward the lockers. There seemed to be another commotion, this one bereft of live-action-replays, more murmuring than yelling. As the crowd parted, Adam saw his silhouette, the sunlight all weird and glinty on the ill-fitting clothes and tangle of hair.

_Nigel._

He strolled past, oblivious to the whispers and stares following, shoulder purposefully careening into Andrew’s on-route.

“Watch it!” Andrew wheeled around, regaining his footing and puffing up his chest as Nigel raised an eyebrow, smirking all the while. And then Andrew held out his hand. “Back from the fucking dead, man.”

“Yeah. Fuckin’ thrilled.” Nigel curled his lip at the streamers above, but returned the gesture just the same. “Cheers.”

Measuring a few backward steps toward the exam hall, Nigel slung his hands into his coat pockets, threw an assortment of notes to the ground, then kicked back the door to join the rest of senior form sitting the math paper that morning. At first Adam thought he must not have seen him. But then, just as the door was about to swing closed, Nigel poked his head back out, winking in his direction.

“Better to die trying, huh?”

“Um… yes,” Adam answered, not at all sure what Nigel meant and wishing he could think of a more inventive reply in the moment. In truth, he was slightly surprised Nigel was being made to sit the test straight after a full two-week suspension. And very much hoping he made use of some of the textbooks Adam had brought him in the interim.

Nigel disappeared inside, and Adam realised he was still staring at the doors when Claire called out to Andrew, the rest of the crowd filtering to class.

“Whatever! Don’t count on it!”

To Adam, she twitched a smile, waiting until Andrew was out of sight before shaking her head.

“Wanna lift for tonight or something? It can kind of suck turning up to these things by yourself.”

Adam frowned, feeling very much like he might have missed a key point in the conversation.

“For… the party you’re not going to? The one I’m not invited to?”

Claire gave a laugh, which Adam thought sounded more like they were sharing a joke than him being the cause. “Oh no, I’m totally going. And you’re totally invited, by the way.”

“How do you know that?” Adam wondered, genuinely curious.

“Well, I did hear Andrew asking you, about thirty seconds ago,” Claire grinned, gaze flicking toward the exam hall as they passed it. “While you were staring at Nigel.”

“Oh.” Adam gave a sheepish smile, slowly falling as he realised all of what going to a party would entail. “I’m… not sure I can.”

“That’s cool.” Claire ripped a corner of paper from the notebook at her chest, scribbling something whilst they walked. “My parents can be jerks too. The only way I ever get to go out is to tell one of them the other said no.” She sighed, passing him her cell phone number on the folded note. “If you manage to find a way round it, you can always give me a call.”

“Thank you,” Adam said, sincere. “I, um, appreciate it. I hope I can make it.”

“It’s nothing,” Claire smiled back. It wasn’t until they’d stopped that Adam realised she had walked him all the way to his classroom, lingering as he went to turn the handle. “…Adam?”

“That’s me,” Adam tried, attempting to seem a bit warmer as she looked somewhat sad.

“I wanted to say something to you.”

Adam waited patiently while Claire fidgeted with her satchel. He was used to needing time to put his own thoughts into words. Finally, she took a breath.

“Look. I don’t know if you remember this, but… like, in junior high, me and my friends used to, uh… sometimes laugh at the stuff you said in class and stuff.”

“I… do remember,” Adam answered carefully. It wasn’t something he thought about very often, especially not now that they were seniors and spoke together sometimes.

“Yeah, well, that was a pretty shit thing to do,” Claire finished, exhaling toward her shoes. “And I feel pretty shit about it. And embarrassed. And I’m sorry.”

Adam swallowed. He knew most people didn’t find apologising easy, and from the blush across Claire’s cheeks, the passing of time didn’t make it an exception.

“It’s alright,” he said gently, trying to catch her eye. “Maybe… I’m just really funny.”

Claire glared at him so hard that for a moment Adam worried he had completely misinterpreted the conversation. But then she spluttered out a laugh, eyes watering in some kind of relief.

“You’re funnier than most of the jerks I hang out with, that’s for sure.”

Adam grinned, feeling a lot better. “I don’t know. Andrew Clarke looked pretty funny miming his wrestling match in the corridor this morning.”

Claire snorted in agreement, her mouth pinching up at the corners as she raised a hand in farewell. “Now that you mention it, Nigel looked pretty funny throwing you some kind of James Bond line from the exam hall doors.”

“Right,” Adam giggled, making sure to pull a straight face before walking in the classroom. It wasn’t until he’d taken a seat that he actually heard her.

_Wait, what?_

-

Chemistry was usually one of Adam’s best subjects. Today, however, he managed to tip a beaker of copper sulphate over his handout in the first ten minutes, burn his iron filaments beyond recognition, and snap a pair of safety goggles trying to tighten them over his nose. Adam could’ve sworn his teacher almost looked relieved when the note came to summon him to the principal’s office.

As Adam walked down the empty corridors, he heard the sudden bang of the exam hall door swinging open upstairs, a series of shouts and groans and footsteps following. He checked his mobile- 11:45. The first of the senior papers was complete. Pausing, it became clear to Adam that half the noise was being created by one student in particular. And, from the sterner voice that echoed after, it appeared Nigel had also seen fit to tear down half the varsity streamers and sprint the length of the hall in celebration.

Grinning, Adam wondered if he had enough time to ask Nigel how it went. From the sound of things, nobody had in fact died trying to do the exam, and perhaps some had even passed.

“Raki!”

The bark nearly startled the idea right out of his skin. Principal Vernon had wrenched back his office door like he had something against it.

“Yes!” Adam yelped.

“Inside.” The head teacher gave a jerk of his chin, leaving the door swinging on its hinges as he stormed back to his desk. Adam could see their school administrator trying not to peer at him over a stack of files. Fidgeting his hands into the sleeves of his cardigan, it suddenly dawned on Adam that students were hardly ever summoned to the office during class, and when they were…

The reason usually wasn’t good.

Adam took a deep breath. Unlike the paint and concrete of the rest of the school, Principal Vernon’s office was coated in more dark pine than a sustainable forest. It wasn’t like the furniture in the graduation hall either- it was the stick-on-wood kind, which you could peel back from the surface and see a slab of fibreboard underneath. The type they used in carpentry class. Adam smiled. Nigel took carpentry class.

“Raki! Am I talking to the four walls here?”

Adam flinched, a flush rising to his cheeks as he realised the teacher had been saying things to him the whole time.

“No, sir.”

He was nervous. He could feel it in his fingertips, the slight tremble that let him know he wasn’t entirely comfortable around someone, no matter how many times they had spoken before. Not that Principal Vernon really ever did speak. If anything, he yelled more than Nigel did.

“Pay attention. The accelerated college admissions program is _very_ prestigious. It would do a lot for the reputation of this school to have one of our students accepted.”

“Okay,” Adam nodded, focusing on the head teacher’s desk. It was a lot easier to hear what the principal was saying without looking at him. There were a lot of pens on the desk, many with gold-tipped lids and various university crests on the side. Adam wondered if Principal Vernon had really attended all of these colleges, or whether he had raided the local education fair.

“Goddamn it Raki, what on earth are you doing with your hands?”

His breath catching in his throat, Adam froze. Slowly, he squinted an eye toward his wrists. He hadn’t even realised. Mortified, Adam whipped both arms behind his back, weaving his fingers together in an effort to keep himself still.

“It’s… ah…” Normally, he found it fairly easy to explain how self-regulation worked, and that he might make a few repetitive hand gestures in response to feeling anxious. But with the principal staring incredulously at him, the words felt sticky on his tongue. “It, um, helps me concentrate on this talk.”

Principal Vernon looked a lot like he was being forced to inhale cough syrup.

“I see,” he glared. “Well it bloody well isn’t helping me concentrate on this talk.”

“No,” Adam swallowed, the fluorescent lights suddenly seeming almost painfully bright. “S-sorry about-”

He halted as the office door creaked open behind, the administrator looking no less apprehensive than Adam. The principal redirected his displeasure over Adam’s shoulder, lip curling back toward his flared nostrils.

“What now?”

The office worker tapped a fingernail on the doorhandle, biting her lip.

“Claire’s father,” she eventually hissed, then mimed holding a telephone to her ear. “Third time this morning.”

“Do you need instruction in how to take a message?” Principal Vernon laughed at his own question. “Tell Standish I’m in a meeting.”

“I did. It’s just, it’s about Claire’s application for school council, and the…”

Adam stole a small glance upward, in time to see her make a writing gesture in mid-air, like you might do to request the cheque in a restaurant.

“The what?” Principal Vernon huffed, making a whirring movement in the air with his hand. “I’m not a mind-reader!”

“The money!” Adam piped in, very much hoping to hasten his exit from the situation as soon as possible. His shirt felt very tight at the collar as they both stared at him. “He wants to… pay a bill?”

The head teacher blinked at him, the line between his eyebrows deepening.

“Ah. The… donation. For the Gifted and Talented Program. Good.” He strode past Adam, the plastic shutters rattling at every windowpane as he slammed the door shut behind.

Adam exhaled like he’d just been swimming underwater. He had absolutely no recollection of the school ever running a Gifted and Talented Program, but if it allowed him some alone-time, he was thankful for it.

Clutching the side of the desk to steady himself, Adam let his eyes chase over the objects in front of him. The glass-prism paperweight reminded him of the galaxy kaleidoscope he had at home. Brushing a knuckle over the smooth edges, he watched the reflections of light spin over the stack of documents beneath, the room slowly feeling a lot larger and quieter than it had just a few moments ago.

Until he noticed exactly what the documents _were_.

It was with a sliding, sickening feeling, that he read the neatly inscribed top line.

_Vilkas, Nigel- MATH3B_

And after that- nothing. Adam snatched the paper from the top of the pile, furiously flicking through the pages. Blank. Every single one was blank. Not even a lewd sketch or a dog-eared corner to tell him that Nigel had even bothered to read the exam at all.

The sheets almost slipping from his fingers, Adam felt incredibly confused. At the very least, the first third of the test was multiple choice, and everyone knew their math professor had a soft spot for making the answer C. Why on earth had Nigel sounded so elated on leaving the exam hall, if he hadn’t even tried? Why had he pretended that he was _going_ to try? And why, why, did Adam all of a sudden feel like the whole office was blurring in front of him, and that his stomach was hosting its own wrestling match somewhere below his lungs.

He set the files back in place, the paperweight cold and heavy on top.

“Raki!”

The familiar bellow didn’t even alarm him as the Principal Vernon swung back into the room.

“This call’s going to take longer than I expected. Lots of… details, to confirm,” he crossed his arms across his chest, as if daring Adam to disagree. Adam stared blankly back. “But I can count on you to represent us in the accelerated admissions round, yes?”

“Oh… yes,” Adam mumbled, reassured when this elicited a triumphant smile instead of further attempts at conversation.

“Good, good.” The teacher ushered Adam out of his office, glancing hurriedly between the phone and his desk calendar as Adam backed out into the hall.

As relieved as he was by the time the door closed, Adam wasn’t exactly sure what he had just signed up for.

-

“Christ on a cracker Adam, you take longer to get ready than me!”

“I know!” Adam tripped toward the door Claire was holding open, the giant silver BMW barely fitting in his driveway. He felt it wasn’t in-keeping with the party mood to explain that most of that time had been spent doing breathing exercises and pacing around his bedroom, rather than choosing an outfit or a gift for Andrew.

“It’s totally cool, I’m just kidding,” Claire winked, shuffling over so Adam could sit next to her in the back. “ _No one_ takes longer to get ready than me.”

“Well, you look really nice,” Adam grinned. Claire always wore neat or matching clothes at school, usually ones that Adam never recognised again. But this evening her hair did seem spikier, her shoes even more uncomfortable.

“Do I? Oh. Cheers.”

Given Claire usually returned compliments with scathing insults, Adam felt pleased he had expressed his thoughts in the way that he wanted to.

“ _Claire?_ Honey, is it Fair _bank_ street or Fair _brook_ street?”

Claire’s father seemed very distracted from the front seat, with an earpiece connected to his mobile while he drove, the sound of another man yelling down the phone audible even over the blast of the air-conditioner.

“It’s Ocean Avenue.” Claire said flatly, frowning with curiosity at the box of chocolates in Adam’s lap. “ _What’s that for?_ ” she mouthed to him.

“For Andrew?” Adam answered, hesitating. He was pretty sure you were supposed to bring a present when you visited someone’s house for a party.

“Man, you think of everything.” Claire laughed, reaching a hand into her purse and fishing out bumper-sticker emblazoned with the words _DO NOT OVERTAKE TURNING VEHICLE_. “My gift was going to be sticking this on the back of his varsity jacket.”

“Sounds great,” Adam nodded, deciding it must be a ‘have-to-be-there’ moment.

“ _Sweetheart_ , that reminds me, we’re going for the jeep for your seventeenth. Your mother and I looked at that second-hand thing you wanted, but you just never know _where_ such a vehicle might’ve come from.”

“The second-hand car dealership?” Claire suggested, turning her gaze out the window.

“Excellent. I’ve already signed the paperwork.” Claire’s father slowed as a large house with a lot of people milling outside came into view. Adam turned his attention to where Claire was peering through the tinted glass. He almost clambered over her lap when the view came into focus.

“That’s Nigel!” Adam blurted, the scene passing almost as soon as he caught it.

“What?” Claire tried to look back where he was pointing, toward a small alleyway at the very edge of Andrew’s street. Adam was _sure_ it had been him, standing with three somewhat older looking guys, college students perhaps.

“I hope you don’t mean that _delinquent_ I used to see hanging around.” Claire’s father pressed the mute button on his cell-phone conversation, staring crossly over the seats.

“Nope, he wasn’t invited.” Claire released hers and Adam’s seatbelts, reaching over Adam to unlock the door.

“Thank you for the lift,” Adam tried, but Mr Standish was already engrossed back in debate with the man on the other line. Claire seemed determined not to glance back at the car until it had pulled away, but Adam saw her father hadn’t waved.

“Was Nigel really not invited?” Adam mumbled, trying not to crumple the box of chocolates as he turned the thought over. Claire smiled.

“Don’t worry,” she said, holding the gate as they stepped beneath a row of colourful lanterns. She looked a lot happier when Adam smiled back. “Never stopped him before.”

-

The party was going well. Granted, it was awfully noisy and even more crowded, but Adam had prepared himself for such a case, and found that with Claire and Andrew to hang out with, the music and people weren’t quite so overwhelming.

“Want a drink?” Andrew yelled, pointing to his beer and Adam’s empty hand.

“Oh, I can get it!” Adam yelled back. This seemed to be the very first time Andrew and Claire had spoken without acting like they hated each other, and Adam definitely didn’t want to be the one to interrupt and remind them that they definitely actually did.

“There’s a case in the kitchen!” Andrew jerked his chin, “and soda in the fridge!”

“Thanks!” Adam gave him a thumbs-up. For someone who Adam previously thought only cared about sports and competition, Andrew seemed to have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure everyone was having a fun time.

Squeezing past some of Andrew’s teammates to get to the ice buckets, Adam saw several varieties of fluorescent-coloured liquor, which looked even more off-putting than the beer. He opened the fridge, far happier when he saw the lemon soda. Struggling back toward his friends, Adam collided with Andrew’s older brother, apologising to the soda spilled on his shoes and continuing on.

“Hey! You! Asshole! Aren’t you-”

Adam didn’t wait to hear the rest of the sentence, ducking around the corner and into Andrew’s laundry room without a second thought. Blinking into the dark, he started to wonder if such an escape might have been an overreaction, but Andrew’s brother had sounded very annoyed, and he’d panicked without thinking about it. When no shout nor banging at the door followed, Adam felt his heart untangle from his windpipe, and reached over to turn on the laundry light.

“Jeepers!”

“-the _fuck_!”

His free hand flying to his mouth, Adam almost dropped the soda when he saw Nigel halfway through climbing in Andrew’s laundry-window, shirt torn at the shoulder and blood splattered from his nose all the way down his front.

He quickly flicked the switch off again, only to hear Nigel snort with laughter, cough, then make some painful-sounding groan as he tumbled to the floor.

“Are you alright?” Adam hissed, “why are you entering Andrew’s house via the laundry?”

“Yes!” Nigel whispered back, cursing as he sounded to have stumbled into the shelf of washing detergent. “Why are _you_ standing in Andrew’s laundry in the dark?”

Giggling in spite of himself, Adam placed his soda on the floor before turning the light back on, the surprise of the first occasion being sufficient for one evening,

“I asked you first.”

Rolling his eyes, Nigel made it to the sink, leaning over in an effort to contain any further mess from his bloodied nose. From the pool of red collecting around the drain, it didn’t seem to be slowing any time soon. Now that Nigel was standing still, Adam could see there appeared to be a lot of scuff marks on the back of his shirt, and the knuckles of his right hand also looked to be going purple.

“What just happened?” Adam pressed, unable to imagine this was all from crawling through an open window.

“Not much,” Nigel said thickly, then spat into the basin. “Bit of a negotiation.”

“But why is your nose bleeding so terribly?” Adam continued, watching as Nigel tried to tilt his head back instead, only to splutter and start coughing all over again.

“Because I didn’t duck?”

Adam felt like he was missing something, but Nigel’s vigorous attempts to mop himself up with the back of his wrist were very distracting, mostly because he was making the whole thing a lot worse than it needed to be.

“Stop, stop-” Adam quickly shuffled out of his cardigan, holding it out to Nigel. “You need to keep still. Don’t lean backward. And apply pressure,” he pinched his thumb and forefinger below the bridge of his nose to demonstrate, “and only breathe through your mouth. Gently. For about ten minutes.”

Whilst Nigel had stopped moving, he made no effort to take the cardigan, frowning as another trickle of blood leaked over his lip.

“You want to fuckin’ wear that again or what?”

“I actually have five others, all exactly the same,” Adam said solemnly. “The alternative is reaching into the washing basket, and who _knows_ how many sweaty pairs of wrestling shorts can fit inside.”

Nigel snorted a second time, just as soon cringing and running the tap as he spat into the sink again.

“Right.”

Adam noticed Nigel’s hands were shaking pretty badly as he took hold of the jumper. Sucking his lip, Adam wondered if he was nervous. But Nigel didn’t look nervous… he looked like he’d just done a lot of strenuous exercise.

“Let’s sit down,” Adam suggested, sliding down the back of the door and patting the tiled floor like it was a comfy mattress. Grimacing, Nigel eased himself against the cupboards opposite, the sleeve of the cardigan held firmly over his nose like Adam had suggested. His eyes looked wary and suspicious, flicking from Adam, around the room and back again, as if it was all a big trap.

Adam knew how that felt.

“Despite me, um, standing in the laundry room with the lights off,” he tried, smiling again and fiddling with the ring on his soda can, “this party is actually isn’t half as dreadful as I imagined.”

Above his grazed knuckles, Adam saw Nigel’s eyes twitch a fraction.

“No shit. I’ll pass Andrew the compliment.”

“Better not, since you weren’t invited.”

“Cheers.” Nigel winked. But his hands looked to be shaking less.

“Do you… enjoy going to parties?” Adam took a small slurp of his soda. He could feel the music humming through the door at his back, layered with some kind of chant encouraging everyone to drink.

“Yeah. I dunno.” Nigel shrugged, shifting around. When Adam looked confused, he cleared his throat. “Good if you want to hang with college kids.”

“Were those college kids in the alleyway outside?” Adam’s face brightened as the recollection made more sense, then quickly fell as Nigel’s injuries entered the picture too. Nigel smirked.

“Fuck. No. Fucking shitcunt dropouts, no way.”

Adam scrunched his nose, watching as Nigel’s amusement seemed to fade into something quieter in the beat that followed. As if keen to break the silence, he scuffed a boot against the floor, banging his heel into the cupboard as if testing whether it would break.

“They just have jobs and cash to buy shit, you know?”

“Sort of.” Adam glanced at the beads of condensation collecting on the outside of his can. “I’m going to try to get a job over the summer.”

“Oh yeah?” Nigel stopped kicking the cupboard. “As what?”

“Maybe a shop assistant?” Adam felt a tiny bit excited just thinking about it. “There’s a lot of stuff advertised in the local paper. All sorts of shops. Heaps at the mall too. Do you want a summer job? Maybe we could apply together!”

Nigel made some sort of scoffing sound, but Adam didn’t think he meant it in a bad way.

“Darling, d’you really think I’m the sort of person anyone wants to see when they walk into a shop?”

“Yes?” Adam offered him the soda, not really sure why it was being questioned.

Nigel sighed, slowly reaching to accept it. Tentatively, he stopped pinching at his nose with the other hand. Adam squinted forward. The bleeding had stopped.

“Well, maybe not looking like _that_.” Adam smiled, grabbing the cardigan to run the other sleeve under the tap. He handed it back to Nigel, who looked as unsure what to do with it as the soda. Adam motioned to the lower half of his face.

“Right. Yeah.” Nigel gave a crooked grin, then gritted his teeth as he scraped at the smears of blood. He held up the can in some kind of salute. “I’d take this over that damn test again though, fuckin’ hell.”

Adam tugged at the pockets of his jeans. In the shock of seeing Nigel so bruised-up, he’d completely forgotten about the blank paper.

“Okay,” Adam shifted from one foot to the other. He didn’t want to force Nigel to talk about the exam if he didn’t want to.

“The last half was a goner, but can’t go wrong for option C on a multiple choice, hey?”

“C is a reasonable guess,” Adam said carefully. Was Nigel lying because he was embarrassed?

“Yeah.” Nigel narrowed his eyes as if unsure about Adam’s response, then got to his feet. “Well. Better get back out, huh? You first.”

“Why?” Adam didn’t quite understand the meaning of Nigel’s mouth pulling up at the corner.

“Cause we’re not walking out of a fuckin’ closet together, that’s why.”

Giggling, Adam poked his tongue out before pulling back the door, darting into the crowd without anyone giving him a second glance. He couldn’t see Claire or Andrew, though he had taken a lot longer than might be expected for a trip to the kitchen. Standing up on tiptoe, he could just make out the back of Andrew’s varsity jacket at the poolside. Pushing lightly between people dancing, Adam made it out onto the lawn without any misadventure. He was halfway through reaching to tap Andrew on the shoulder when it suddenly occurred to him that Andrew wasn’t usually that tall. But by then it was too late.

Andrew’s brother turned around.

“Hah.” His eyes seemed slightly bleary, his syllables slurred into one. “Look who it is.”

“Sorry about before,” Adam said quickly. “It was an accident.”

The older youth didn’t seem to have heard him, his sneer growing wider and wider as he stared down.

“I remember you from school.”

Adam felt his pulse speed a little as several other boys closed around them. He didn’t think he had known Andrew’s brother that well, though he remembered him being very good at sports too, and had graduated the year previous.

“You’re the kid who does this.” Laughing, Andrew’s brother waved his hands around in a ridiculous manner, making the movements wilder as all his friends started laughing too.

“Oh my god…” Adam covered his face in horror, his cheeks burning beneath his palms. “Can you please not?”

“Yeah, yeah, like this,” Andrew’s brother only seemed spurred to shake his hands around even worse, his friends seized-up in hysterics like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

Peeking through his fingers, Adam couldn’t recognise a single person around him, and, though he hadn’t drunk any alcohol, was starting to feel like he might be sick.

“You’re the one who-”

He never finished. Adam almost tripped over his sneakers as the circle of college kids leapt aside, Andrew’s brother making some kind of high-pitched yell as he found himself dragged to the poolside, arms and legs thrashing as Nigel gripped him by the collar of his jacket. The shouting increased as Nigel kicked his feet from under him, pitching his head down and under the water. Nigel’s knuckles had gone white from the effort, his eyes black and cold.

A lot more screams followed in the split second after, though not from any of the older boys, who stood looking at Nigel open-mouthed. He stared back at them, upper lip slowly curling to some sort of vicious invitation. Andrew’s brother was writhing madly under Nigel’s grip, bubbles and suffocated shrieks echoing from the surface of the pool. Nigel smiled. As if hearing some inhuman whisper beneath the pleas and the splashing, the fists clutching and clawing at air…

The group backed away.

“Nigel! He’s had enough! He can’t breathe!” Claire had run from the other side of the garden, yelling and pulling at Nigel’s free arm.

As if coming back to his senses, Nigel blinked at her curiously, then pulled the drowned head from the water.

“You breathing?”

Adam thought the response sounded like a ‘yes’, but it was hard to tell through all the curse words and spitting up of chlorine.

“Shame.” Nigel shrugged, ploughing his face right back into the pool.

“Hey!” Andrew was bolting from some corner of the lawn too, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. “What the fuck’s going on!”

There was no time for an answer. With a ripple that seemed to travel faster than lightning, someone had shouted ‘cocks’ from the living room, and all of a sudden people were racing to scramble over the back fence. Nigel let go of Andrew’s brother, who staggered unbalanced to his feet, reeling and baring his teeth as he tried to gulp down air.

For a moment, Adam was terrified he was going to lunge at Nigel, when several more voices added to the general yelling. Which is when Adam realised they weren’t making rude remarks. They were saying _cops_.

Andrew’s brother seemed to register the fact at the same time. Pointing a deliberate finger at Adam, he stood still and dripping for a few seconds, then turned heel and sprinted across the lawn, vaulting over the splintered wooden fence and into the street. Adam shivered.

“Talk later,” Andrew urged, jerking his chin toward what looked to be a lower section of the wall. “We gotta split!”

“Right behind you,” Adam croaked, jogging after them. He watched Andrew help Claire over the fence, then quickly clamber out of sight.

“Hey,” Nigel’s voice was calm in the midst of the rush around them, “s’alright. I’ll give you a boost.”

Adam took another step, his whole body shuddering in protest, heart pounding at his throat.

“Nigel…” he could barely force the sound from his chest, “I don’t think I can move.”

Nigel licked his tongue over his busted lip, frowning. Nigel usually appeared very tall standing next to him, but as Adam trembled and crossed his arms over his middle, he seemed to be making an effort to lean down lower.

“Okay.”

Adam could feel that he was rocking from side to side, and, though he couldn’t fully open his eyes yet, knew that Nigel was still there.

“You should get out of here,” Adam whispered, trying his best to make his voice less strangled. “I know you might kind of think I look a bit weird right now, but, I’ll actually feel a lot better, in, like five minutes.”

“I’m not thinking you look weird,” Nigel said softly.

“You sure?” Adam sniffled out a laugh, “’cause _I_ think I look pretty weird. And… I’m just noticing your boots don’t match.”

Nigel snorted in amusement, dropping his gaze to where Adam was squinting.

“Yeah,” he laughed. “Well. You’re the first.”

Adam loosened his grip on his upper arms. Gradually, he raised his eyes a little further up, managing to get to the pockets of Nigel’s jeans, his hands slung by his sides.

As if noticing, Nigel gently reached a palm toward him, stopping at Adam’s elbow as if not sure what to do. Adam stretched his fingers until they just touched against Nigel’s, then curled in between. It was an odd way to hold hands, but, as Adam felt Nigel squeeze back, he realised he was smiling.

“Don’t let go,” he whispered.

“Not going anywhere,” Nigel whispered back.

“Well, _here’s_ a surprise!”

Jolted to his bearings, Adam hadn’t noticed the police officers had been approaching until they were already right behind him.

“Look who’s kid it is!”

Nigel twitched like he’d been stung, upper lip snagged to a snarl. At first Adam thought the officers were referring to him. Adam’s dad was a well-known lecturer at the local Community College, and his former students often stopped to greet him when they were out at the supermarket or a cafe. But, as Adam hauled his stare to the two faces above, he realised they were looking at Nigel.

“You eighteen yet, Vilkas? Old enough to say hello to your old man?”

“You got nothin’!” Nigel hissed, then, as if to punctuate the statement, suddenly spat at one of the officer’s shoes. Adam raised an eyebrow. Nigel had surprisingly good aim.

“Goddamn little shit,” came the response, the other taking Nigel by the arms.

“Wait!” Adam yelped, his voice shrill as his Nigel’s hand was pulled free of his grasp. They were marching him toward the living room, Nigel swearing something awful. “He really hasn’t done anything! I… I asked him to stay, he-”

“Don’t worry about that now,” a third voice said, another police officer in a slightly different uniform. Adam suspected the tone was intended to be soothing. It was exactly the opposite.

“No, please,” Adam insisted. He could hear Nigel being questioned, then the sound of glass shattering as Nigel kicked over a coffee table. “If… if, the noise is a problem, or something, I can f-find the stereo, or-”

The smartly-dressed officer was nodding, giving him a sympathetic smile that dried up the words at Adam’s throat. No one was listening.

“Let’s get you inside and call your parents,” the police officer said kindly. “You’ve obviously gotten caught up in the wrong crowd.”

Adam could still feel the warmth between his fingers where Nigel had held on. Looking at his hands, he realised he wasn’t even trembling.

“I haven’t,” Adam said flatly. He turned around to make his point clear when the officer tried to follow. “And, I can do it myself.”

-


	4. Driving Fast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 4! :0) I feel like a summary might be too spoilery, but thank you soso much for reading and I really really hope you like it!<3 I don't usually receive many asks/messages about fics, so I also thought to say how insanely cool it was to hear that people are enjoying the story, I treasure all the comments to bits and they all make me the most happy! *^^* Sooyes, I know I'm sort of hopeless when it comes to chat and so on, but I love everyone in this fandom and you make writing this so much fun!! :>
> 
> All my love to nebularva for your incredible art and inspiration and alerting me to the fact that Illinois is not, in fact, a small pine-tree-filled town on the doorstep of Boston!! :"D ♥♥♥

** **

Adam could hear Andrew coming before he saw him. Or rather, he could hear a lot of people shouting ‘hey!’ or ‘watch it!’, and _see_ a whole lot more leaping out of the way. Peeking over the brim of his locker-door, Adam felt very much like he no longer needed to sit through one of Andrew’s wrestling championships.  
****

“Adam!” Andrew’s cheeks were as flushed as if he _had_ just won a match, his eyes anything but happy. “Adam. Hi. Can I talk to you?”

Now that Andrew had made it to his side, it seemed that was as far as he had planned.

“Yes,” Adam replied.

Andrew seemed to be frowning and sweating an awful lot, which Adam realised was something he also did when he didn’t know how to start. And… in that kind of situation, it could be pretty helpful when the other person went first.

“Gosh Monday assemblies are boring, aren’t they?” Adam rolled his eyes, feeling a bit dizzy after doing so. “I mean, most of those announcements were already posted in the weekly school bulletin. No need to say them twice!”

Andrew stared at him.

“We have a weekly school bulletin?”

Adam was halfway through reaching for the date-ordered stack of newsletters in his locker when Andrew suddenly remembered what he’d been about to say.

“Hey. Wait. Uh. Actually…”

Adam gave a gentle nod, encouraging. Andrew appeared to have become fixated on a lump of chewing gum stuck to the floor. 

“…It’s about my party.”

“Oh.” Adam started gazing at it too. He was pretty sure it had once been blueberry-flavoured.

“Yeah.” Andrew took a deep breath, then made himself look somewhere close to Adam’s eyebrows. “I heard what went down. And I am so, _so_ fucking sorry, Adam.”

Adam had never seen Andrew stand so stiffly in his life, his hands and shoulders all clenched and uncomfortable.

“It wasn’t you that made it happen,” Adam said softly. 

“But it _shouldn’t_ have happened,” Andrew muttered. “Nothing like that should ever fucking happen.”

Adam knew he couldn’t make Andrew feel better in a single answer. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. 

“So. I’ll, um, bring my swimming shorts for the next one then?”

Andrew looked as if a flying saucer had just landed in the hallway.

“…since there are, uh, maybe other ways to have a pool party?”

Adam felt like he might possibly be speaking Klingon as it was. Then, very slowly, Andrew’s face kindled with recognition.

“Oh my God Adam,” he grinned, then shook his head. “Yeah. I reckon.”

Adam tried a wink, raising a hand to wave as he saw Claire making her way toward them.

“What did I miss?” she stared from one guilty smile to the other.

“Awkward apologies.”

“-Swimming pools,” Adam said at the same time, which made Andrew laugh.

“Oo-kay.” Claire gave them a withering look, which Adam was quickly learning meant she was amused. “The office just asked me to give you this, by the way.”

Adam held out his hand for the letter, his eyes widening as he recognised the orange and black crest at the corner of the envelope.

“What is it?” Claire whispered.

“It’s… from Princeton University?” Adam unfolded the pages, the paper all taut and textured between his fingers. “…It’s _this_ weekend?” he added moments later, his voice unintentionally rising a pitch.

“What? What’s this weekend?”

Andrew appeared confused, whilst Claire raised an eyebrow, more and more curious. Adam realised he’d never gotten a chance to tell either of them.

“The accelerated college admissions round. It’s this exam-test thing. To um, see if you can get early placement at a University. Principal Vernon wants me to sit for it.”

“Oh,” Andrew breathed out, absentmindedly stretching an arm behind his back. “I getcha. I’m going for a college sports scholarship next year too.”

“My dad will probably bribe someone to get me in,” Claire said flatly. Adam couldn’t tell if she was joking. He glanced at the letter again.

“I don’t think I can go anyway though. It’s in New Jersey.” He wasn’t sure if he should add the bit about his parents working all weekend- he didn’t want it to sound like he blamed them. Curious, Andrew leaned over to read the exam notice upside-down.

“Well, like… I could drive you? If you want.”

Adam blinked. He remembered Andrew had been one of the first seniors to get his license, and looked about as hopeful now as he had then. 

“It’s a lot of trouble,” Adam said carefully, unsure if Andrew was being serious. “And a long journey. We’d have to go the day before even.”

“That’s cool,” Andrew shrugged. “We’ll go the day before.”

“It could be like a road trip!” Claire gasped. “Seriously, can we do that? Even if you weren’t taking the exam!”

They both seemed so excited that Adam started blushing.

“I don’t want to put you out…” he mumbled, wondering if the sensation of people doing things for you was supposed to feel like too many fizzy drinks.

“No way man.” Andrew had already pulled out his phone, and Adam could see him typing ‘Prince’ into Google maps. “I’ve been as far as Pittsburgh for wrestling meets anyway. So you already have my list of drive-throughs to avoid. And speed-cams to avoid. And… shortcuts to avoid.”

“Thank… you?” Adam laughed, fidgeting with the corners of the envelope. The familiar crest already seemed brighter in his hands. “I mean it. That… sounds really fun.”

Whilst Adam was worried he wasn’t expressing his feelings well enough, Andrew looked as keen to not hear any feelings as possible, waving and scoffing and guffawing like he drove up to New Jersey every second day.

“And maybe we can invite Nigel,” Claire said lightly, fixing up her hair spikes and gazing at no-one in particular. His face feeling warmer than ever, Adam decided it was definitely a good time to concentrate on getting the rest of his books out of his locker.

“Er… why?” Andrew squinted at his phone like the screen resolution was hurting him.

“Er… because road trip?” Seeing Adam struggling, Claire held out her arms for half the textbooks. “Dude, do we need to watch _Crossroads_ again _already?”_

Adam couldn’t help wonder when between last Friday and now Claire and Andrew had managed to view the Britney Spears film the first time. Or why Andrew had started going red all over again.

“Nope,” he managed. “Nope, I’m all good. I mean we could. Ha ha. But I get it. Road trip. I’m in.”

Andrew gave them a thumbs up, then shoved both hands into his varsity jacket and strutted off down the corridor, managing to only bump into a handful of people this time.

“Nigel might not want to come though,” Adam said shyly, trying to help Claire as they negotiated how best to manoeuvre the load of books. He wasn’t unhappy she suggested it. He just had no idea how to tell her that.

“Ask him.” Claire was making headway toward the library. Adam was still standing next to his locker when she glanced back, smiling. “He might.”

-

“You can’t smoke in here.”

Nigel glanced up from behind a cupped hand, lighter cocked in the other. Andrew’s reflection was scowling at him from the rear-view mirror. Claire peered over the shotgun seat beside, lips squished together. Adam thought she might have been trying not to laugh.

Lowering his eyelids, Nigel gave Andrew a very deep and serious frown, like he was truly considering the statement. Then, he twitched a smirk, lit the cigarette, and took a markedly longer draw of it than Adam even thought possible. It was rather fascinating.

“Disgusting,” Andrew muttered, whilst Claire’s shoulders shook with silent giggles.

Sucking his tongue over his teeth, Nigel only looked more amused, hanging the stick out the window and exhaling as slow as he’d pulled it. Adam liked to watch Nigel’s hand as he drew it back to his lips. Unlike his shoulders, which were slouched so far down it appeared he were sinking, and his legs, which alternated between bouncing and accidentally kicking the back of Andrew’s seat… Nigel’s hands were awfully graceful, fingers loosely curved as if he were holding the bow of some instrument. He was wearing a torn pair of black leather gloves, cut-off halfway and at each knuckle. The material was all frayed and worn, and Adam thought they made him look like some sort of artist.

If Nigel noticed him staring, he didn’t say. Closing his eyes, he finished his cigarette all slow and calm, like he was listening to a song that played only in his head. When he opened them again, he threw Adam a tiny wink, then crushed the butt on the outside of the car door. Andrew looked positively scandalised.

“This is a 1985 Chevy,” he muttered, huffing when the name didn’t seem to elicit any particular reaction. “Not some burn’n’blaze getaway ride.”

Nigel snorted, grazing the inside of his thumb along his jaw.

“Believe me pal, with your driving, _we know_.”

Even Adam started to giggle. Despite all his talk of speed cameras, Andrew had proven terribly reluctant to edge even remotely close to the limit.

“And,” Nigel mused, yanking at the side of his seat until it reclined the whole way down. “It’s a 1986 Chevy.”

Andrew gave an incredulous laugh, making a rather obvious point of checking his side-view mirrors as they turned onto the highway.

“I think I bloody well know what car I bought when I signed the paperwork, Vilkas.”

“You fuckin’ sure?” Nigel smirked at the sunroof, wedging an arm behind his head. “As in, you fuckin’ checked the side of the engine, or just the first stamp some suit gave you?”

“What on earth are you getting at?” Andrew shifted around on his seat vigorously enough to make the leather squeak.

Nigel unearthed a pack of chewing gum from his jacket pocket, shaking out three pieces and offering it to Adam. He had only chewed for a few seconds before spitting the gum into the air, catching it with his teeth after it almost touched the roof.

“Wouldn’t wanna pay the 1985 price for the 1986.” Nigel chewed again whilst Andrew stared at him in dismay. Adam wasn’t sure if it was because of the gum or the car.

“It’s a 1985 Chevy,” Andrew said finally, glaring at the dash as if hoping for some clue to settle the matter.

“Wanna pull over and pop the hood?”

Adam decided it was too soon after a strawberry milkshake for peppermint gum, and tentatively offered the pack to Andrew instead.

“Cheers, but no,” Andrew sniffed. Since he took the gum, Adam assumed he was referring to stopping and popping the hood. “We’re making good time.”

Nigel said nothing, but grinned at the roof again. Andrew switched the radio on. Adam fiddled with the side of his seat, trying to get it to lie horizontally like Nigel’s. He only managed to get his cardigan sleeve caught in the plastic lever, promptly ripping a hole at the cuff as he pulled back.

“Two down, four to go,” Nigel gave him a knowing wink, leaning over to untangle the ruined jumper. “Sit tight.”

Adam was about to ask what he was sitting tight for, when Nigel suddenly jerked the lever, Adam’s seat whipping backward in the same amount of time it took to blink. He beamed.

“Thanks.”

Nigel shuffled on his side to face him. Then, double-thinking it, twisted in the opposite direction, spat the gum out the window, and rearranged himself back toward Adam. Adam tried not to giggle. From the corner of his eye, he could see Andrew gritting his teeth like they were chewing everlasting toffee instead of Extra.

“So, how’s this thing work anyway?” Nigel nudged the stack of textbooks at Adam’s feet with his boot. “Don’t exactly give you much time to study, do they?”

“Oh, this isn’t supposed to be a test you can study for,” Adam explained, pleased to have something interesting to share. “It’s an all-round entry exam, so, high-level concepts of math, science and humanities, to test knowledge and application.”

“Right.” Nigel made a face, then tried a smile toward the books. “Then…?”

“These are just for homework this evening,” Adam said brightly. “And also, in case anyone wanted something entertaining to read in the car.”

Nigel spluttered a laugh, then seeing Adam staring solemnly back, apparently needed to cough and clear his throat quite a few times. Adam reached over to pat him on the back, waiting until Nigel was okay before reaching for one of the books.

“Like this.”

Nigel grimaced at the cover.

_Dante’s Inferno._

“Is that for… biology?”

“No!” It was Adam’s turn to start laughing, which made Nigel’s mouth flinch up at the corners too. “It’s a book of 14th century poems about the nine circles of Hell. And it’s one of the prescribed texts for your final English examination, by the way.”

“No shit,” Nigel laughed again, swiping his nose against his sleeve. “Better get onto that sometime.”

“You could get onto it now,” Adam suggested, tucking back the front cover to be helpful. “We’ve still got a few hours driving?”

“Huh. Yeah.” Nigel clicked his tongue at the page Adam was holding out, fingertips only just reaching on the edges. “Yeah.”

Adam waited. Nigel glanced warily between him and the book, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. He didn’t look so good.

“I mean, you don’t have to,” Adam clarified, still holding the other side of the text. “I used to get car-sick from reading too, when I was younger. But it’s all fine now.”

“Right,” Nigel nodded. Adam wasn’t sure whether he looked relieved, or slightly upset. He drew his hands away from the book. “Yeah. Maybe not then.”

“You don’t want to mess-up the 1985 Chevy,” Adam winked.

“Fucking hell.” Nigel shook his head, but Adam saw he was smiling.

They gazed at the roof for a while, the radio crackling something soft and warm.

“I could read it out loud,” Adam said quietly. He could hear Nigel move just the tiniest bit. Adam squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, then tentatively peeked to his side. Nigel was staring at him.

“Alright.” Nigel’s voice was gentle. He squashed his cheek into the crook of his arm. “I’m listening.”

-

Adam sat on the windowsill in his pyjamas. The single dorm room was neat, symmetrical, and about the same size as his at bedroom at home. He didn’t feel nearly so out-of-sorts as he expected. His heart only started to race when he considered the fact that he might actually be _living_ at a university sooner rather than later, and that would mean a completely different routine to get used to. Adam swallowed. Right now, it helped to concentrate on something else. Like the continuous banging sound in the background.

_Wait._

“Hello?” Adam padded across the floorboards.

“Adam! It’s me!”

Claire almost fell over when he pulled back the door, having been leaning at some awkward angle to try and see through the keyhole.

“Hi.” Adam started giggling, purely from Claire’s conspiratorial grin. He wasn’t sure if it were a consequence of increased anxiety or something about the road-trip thing, but his friends had made him laugh enough since they’d left Illinois that his cheeks had started to ache. “I thought you went to bed.”

“I thought _you_ went to bed,” she whispered, slipping past him like there was a hall-monitor on her tail. Adam peered up and down the corridor just to be safe. All clear. He shut the door.

“You thought I went to bed and so you wanted to wake me up with really loud knocking?” Adam tilted his head to one side, not really minding if she had.

“Uh. Yes? No. Maybe?” Claire gave a hopeless smile. “Did you know they have a 24-hour coffee cart here? I think I may have gotten too enthused.”

“Where’s mine then?” Adam pulled one of Nigel’s silly faces, fetching the blanket from his bed and spreading it on the floor like a rug. “I’m just kidding. My tummy’s already doing somersaults.”

“Stretch it out,” Claire suggested, sprawling over the blanket. “I kind of feel like that too.”

“But you’re not sitting an exam?” Adam copied her position, then reached for his phone to take a photo of them. Claire had already explained that taking funny photographs was integral to the road-trip experience. She did a sticky-outy-tongue-face for the camera, then twisted to face Adam.

“I sort of didn’t think you meant the exam.”

Adam blinked, waiting for her to continue. Instead she just raised an eyebrow, then seemed to change her train of thought altogether.

“So. You reckon Nigel and Andrew hate each other, or _loathe_ each other?”

“Definitely _loathe._ ” Adam grinned, recalling the heated dinnertime conversation over whether it was obnoxious to pay for a small fries with a hundred-dollar bill. “There can’t possibly be that much yelling over who’s-shouting-who without a bit of _loathing_.”

Claire snorted. One of the games Adam had started in the car was having to think of words they didn’t normally use, and then slip them into a sentence later on without anyone noticing. But it was pretty hard not to laugh while you were doing it.

“I kinda keep wondering,” Claire mused, scrunching and un-scrunching the blanket, “if Andrew’s just being a dork because me and Nigel-”

She stopped all of a sudden, her face falling slightly as she darted Adam a glance. She looked more like she wanted to swallow the sentence than spit it out.

“It’s okay?” he ventured, vaguely getting a sense that Claire might think the opposite. “To say you used to have sex with each other?”

Claire’s eyes widened, then she burst out laughing.

“Okay,” she managed. “I was going to say _date_ , but okay.”

“ _Oh._ ” Adam started laughing too. “Right. Sorry!”

Adam fidgeted to sit cross-legged, holding up both palms in surrender whilst Claire bounced one of his squishy stress-balls at him. Adam managed to catch it, then stared at his hand as if not having expected to. Claire flipped onto her back, pulling her knees up toward the ceiling.

“You’re really nervous for this test thing?” she asked softly, peeking at him through her bangs.

“Um, _definitely_?” Adam blinked back in surprise. “You think I don’t get… nervous about stuff?”

“No…” Claire sucked at her bottom lip. “I just know this is the stuff that you’re really good at.”

Adam reshaped the stress ball between his fingertips, lightly pressing at the surface.

“Can I tell you something?” he said eventually.

Gently, Claire sat up.

“I’m not nervous I won’t do well…” Adam closed his eyes, the whole of the twelve-hour car trip rewinding through his mind. It wasn’t the kind of trip you could do after class. Or on a bicycle. Or when you really, _really_ needed to, if only to have someone wave back. 

“I’m nervous I will.”

Claire looked at him for a while, but when she nodded, Adam knew she got it.

“Can I tell you something too?”

Adam offered her the stress-ball.

“I… haven’t actually had sex with anyone.”

Adam stared. This was Claire, who knew all the jokes, read all the magazines, snuck into R-rated movies, swapped tips and embarrassing stories with her friends…

Slowly, Adam smiled. Claire smiled back.

They were only twenty minutes into one of the films on Adam’s laptop before Claire was fast asleep on the blanket, and Adam had to creak open the cupboard inch by inch to get a spare for his bed. He was re-reading the exam schedule on his phone when a text message sprang to the top of the screen.

Adam glanced at Claire. And then at his textbooks. And then his pyjamas. And then at the window.

He was going to need another cardigan.

-

Nigel met him just outside the building, all dishevelled and droopy against the wall. He was the only one of the four of them who hadn’t brought a suitcase, and seemed to have made up for it by wearing as many mismatched layers of clothing as possible.

“You look like a rockstar,” Adam breathed, crumpling his nose a second after as he realised how silly it sounded.

“Yeah?” Nigel twitched the side of his mouth. He didn’t seem un-pleased.

“Couldn’t you sleep?” Adam asked. Despite trying to telephone the whole day after, they hadn’t had a chance to talk alone since the police had broken up Andrew’s party, and Nigel had steadfastly avoided the topic ever since. What Adam really wanted to ask, was if Nigel was okay.

Nigel narrowed his eyes, then folded his arms loosely across his chest.

“Reckon I could,” he said roughly. “But. You should see this.” Nigel jerked his head toward a gate in the neatly-trimmed hedges, trying his very best not to grin. Adam stared back in surprise. Hesitating, Nigel’s face fell a fraction.

“I mean. If you want.” His gaze flicked over a loose thread at the seam of his fingerless-gloves, and he snapped it off with his teeth. “You should probably be the one sleeping, huh?”

“Oh, no,” Adam hurried. “Well. Yes. _Should_ be. But… I, um, tried, and, that isn’t happening. You know. When you’re just sort of thinking too much?” He tugged at the drawstrings cords of his jumper. One looked like a satellite. The other just looked… incredibly chewed. 

Nigel cocked his head toward his shoulder, blowing at the hair that had fallen over his eyes. He gave a crooked smile, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”

Tracing a few steps backward, he nudged the gate behind them with the heel of his boot, eyes creasing at the corners as it creaked open.

“Wait a minute,” Adam giggled, following him under the archway. “Wasn’t this locked when we arrived?”

Nigel threw him a squinty sort of glance. It reminded Adam of the expression he got when the school fire alarm went off for no reason. Or when the screws had been loosened on the office doors. Or when all the wall-clocks had been wound back an hour. Or when someone accidentally switched the principals’ reserved parking sign with the loading dock sign for the cafeteria.

Except he also looked…

Happier?

“Right.” Nigel had stopped where the pathway reached a corner. Adam knew there were a lot of barely-known or hidden places in all the Ivy League Universities, many of which had once been restricted to fellows only. His chest full of excited-butterflies, he bit his tongue to keep from reeling off the list of locations he thought Nigel might have possibly discovered. Nigel looked like he was in suspense too. Well, his cheeks were ever so slightly pink at least.

“Wanna close your eyes?”

“They’re already closed!” Adam flailed his arms in the direction Nigel was standing.

“Okay.” Nigel sounded like he was smiling. “A few more steps to your left- no, other left-okay-”

“Here?” Adam could feel they had stepped off the path, the grass all spongey and springy under his sneakers.

“Here.” Nigel gave a low laugh, the plastic wrapper on his packet of smokes making a crinkling sound as he drew it out.

Squinting one eye and then the other, Adam found himself expecting a burst of golden radiance, predicting he’d be standing below some renowned statue. Instead was a wash of quiet darkness, the campus soccer field stretched out in front of them, all the lamps simultaneously on the fritz. Adam could’ve _sworn_ there had also been security floodlights earlier in the evening. Nigel cleared his throat, the paper at the end of the cigarette burning orange as he inhaled. He flicked a glance above him, exhaling white from the side of his mouth.

“Up.”

Slowly, Adam tilted his head backward, unable to help his mouth from falling ajar. Without the lights of the city all around them, the sky looked like a city in itself, the blackness shattered with sparkling fragments. He could almost imagine each pinpoint was a beacon within some uncharted map, or a window in an apartment complex, opening and closing in time with the flickering.

Adam didn’t blink for so long that his eyes were watering by the time he gazed back at Nigel. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“How did you know I like…” Adam trailed off, his voice getting all tight for no reason. He had read about it in all the books, and knew all eighty-eight constellations in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres by heart. But he’d never been camping, or taken his telescope on a bushwalk. And it all looked so incredibly _different_ … when it was actually real.

“…space?” Nigel finished gently.

Adam could only stare. Then, gradually, he tipped his chin toward his chest, his smile spreading wider and wider. There was perhaps _some_ element of coincidence in it, but the enormous NASA emblem splashed across his jumper was indisputably the brightest thing in sight. The fact that he happened to be wearing pyjama pants emblazoned with the solar system also didn’t go astray.

“Ah.” Adam grinned. “Maybe I should start a band too.”

“Or join mine, apparently,” Nigel laughed. Then, seeing Adam peek back up at the sky, shrugged off his coat and threw it untidily over the grass. Adam was pretty sure Nigel meant to sit on it, but he sprawled himself over the damp lawn instead, the waning cigarette pinched between his teeth as he tucked both arms behind his head.

Tentative, Adam perched at the edge of Nigel’s coat, then eased his spine against the material, still warm from Nigel’s back.

“You can lay here too?” Adam mumbled, patting the spot next to him. It really was a very large coat. 

“M’alright.” Nigel’s voice sounded low and husky over the cigarette, and he turned to give Adam a lopsided smile.

“But you’ll get soggy,” Adam said seriously, poking his sneaker at the grass. Nigel chuckled, which Adam took to mean no. He kept his gaze resolutely fixed on the Milky Way as Nigel shuffled next to him several seconds later, the last of the smoke leaking above them as he extinguished the rest of it beside.

“Have you done this lots of times?” Adam whispered. He felt Nigel’s shoulder bump lightly against his arm as he twisted to get comfortable.

“Hey?” Nigel raised an eyebrow, not quite seeming like he expected the question.

“Watched the stars?” Adam murmured, pulling his hood more snugly over his ears. His words made a silver fog on the air, which he watched swirl to shimmering silence. Beyond the charts and orbit paths, he suddenly felt he were gazing at something alive and beating, like the surface of the ocean, too dark to see below. He almost wanted to reach his hand into the air, if only to see if it would all ripple and swim away.

“No,” Nigel said quietly.

Adam wanted to tell him he was grateful. That it took his breath away. And if it wasn’t for the coat-button digging into his back, they might as well have been floating through the sky too. 

“D’you like it?”

Adam realised Nigel was looking at him, but switched back to staring upwards when Adam let his head tip to the side.

“Yes.” Adam took another sip of air. “So much.”

Adam saw Nigel’s mouth make a scrunchy-movement at the corner. 

“It was my dad who showed me. Just once.”

Adam felt himself smiling, utterly astonished. Nigel never talked about his family.

“Your father taught you how to stargaze?”

Adam wasn’t sure if he was shivering from being delighted and overwhelmed, or because he couldn’t exactly feel his fingers. He wriggled the tiniest bit closer to Nigel either way.

“Wouldn’t say _taught me to stargaze_ ,” Nigel chuckled. “More like, hey, here’s something high and free, but still.” Nigel uncoiled the arm next to Adam, letting it fall it across the coat. “Still. It was cool.”

Adam blinked at him, his throat kind of stinging while his heart felt like he _had_ visited the 24-hour campus coffee cart. He made a small noise when he swallowed, which he was glad Nigel didn’t seem to notice. Or… make a big deal of. Adam nodded.

“That is cool,” he whispered.

Adam sort of wanted to hug him. It wasn’t every day you got to see something special, or share it with someone who found it as special as you. He also _really_ didn’t want to seem incredibly weird, because he didn’t often see Nigel going around hugging people. But… he also didn’t often see Nigel looking at people the way he was looking at him now. 

Adam eased the back of his head off the ground, then nudged himself upwards. Faltering, he lay his head back down on Nigel’s shoulder, the spot right where his arm met his chest.

“Is this okay?” he said softly.

Nigel peered across at him. Adam wasn’t sure if he maybe appeared surprised.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice coarse. For a moment, Adam wondered if Nigel was about to say more. But then, gently, he moved his arm so that Adam could lie more comfortably, his hand roughly curled at Adam’s other shoulder. Adam took a quick glance at Nigel’s knuckles, the bruises and scrapes of the weekend before already on the mend.

“Are you sure?” Adam squirmed and laughed at once. When he turned on his side, he could see Nigel’s chest slowly rising and falling against the blot of the horizon. “I’m not too heavy?”

Nigel snorted, which made his chest twitch for a second. Sucking his tongue against his canine, he raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah… no.”

“Okay,” Adam smiled. Despite the fact the tip of his nose had gone numb, he could’ve slept like that the whole night, had he only closed his eyes. But that also would have meant it didn’t last forever.

“Shooting- _fuck!_ ” Nigel yelled suddenly, his opposite arm waving wildly somewhere east of Mars.

“Shooting _what_?” Adam’s head bounced up as he tried to see.

“Fuck. Star,” Nigel said, sounding slightly disappointed as he relaxed again. “But it was over in like a second.”

“That’s… how they are.” Adam beamed, excited by Nigel’s enthusiasm even if he had missed it. “But if you see one, sometimes it means others are on the way.”

“Like a pack?” Nigel murmured.

“Like a… shower.” Adam pinched his mouth as Nigel glanced at him again. “Of rocks.”

Nigel grinned.

“Right. You take that side. I’ll take the left.”

“Deal,” Adam said, immediately catching Nigel peeking the wrong way. “But if you see something, just shout ‘ _there’_. Shooting fuck takes too long.”

Nigel huffed a laugh, settling back into position. When Adam shivered again a little while later, Nigel gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“Hey. D’you-”

“Nigel?” Adam said at the same time. Nigel stopped.

“What are you going to do when you leave school?”

Nigel grimaced, squashing his nose against his wrist as he glared at the sky. Finally, he exhaled.

“I dunno, Adam,” he said quietly. “I think about it though.”

“Do you ever think,” Adam wound his hands inside his sleeves, tugging at the material whilst he tried to find the right words. “Of moving to a place like this?”

“A place like Jersey Shore?” Nigel stared at him like Adam had suggested he live on the moon. He wavered between amusement and looking sad.

“Because you said hanging around college kids is useful,” Adam said swiftly, wanting Nigel to understand. Suddenly, he couldn’t talk fast enough. “Because they have cash to buy things. That’s what you said. And… at _this_ kind of college…”

Adam sat up, hoping Nigel didn’t think he was crazy. Nigel did seem to be frowning in disbelief. Wedging both hands into the grass behind him, he eased himself upright too.

“Huh.” Nigel’s eyes clouded a fraction. If it wasn’t Nigel, Adam would have thought he was nervous. “Well. About people… buying shit…”

Adam waited until it became clear that Nigel didn’t know what to say, or how to say it.

“You can tell me later?” Adam said gently. “I’m not going anywhere?”

Nigel just looked more pained. Adam tried a goofy smile.

“ _Especially_ since all the shooting stars keep happening on your side!”

Nigel laughed. He couldn’t argue with that.

“Alright. We’re switching places.” He hoisted himself up from the coat before a case could be made for the laws of natural probability. “And _this_ time-”

Nigel paused as a strange series of clicks echoed around the soccer field. Confused, Adam blinked to his left and right. There was definitely no one in sight. Nigel appeared equally puzzled. Then, very slowly, his face spread into the guiltiest smirk Adam had seen in his life.

“Oh shit.” He held out both hands to help Adam up. 

Hopelessly intrigued at all the mystery, Adam placed his palms in Nigel’s, standing up a good deal more clumsily than he would have liked. He squealed a second later, as a cold jet of water streaked across his back.

“Fucking _freezing!_ ” Nigel yelled, apparently standing at just the right angle for the sprinkler to hit him in the face. 

All around the lawn, a pattern of sweeping arcs untangled from the ground, spinning in concentric circles whilst loose droplets of water formed a curtain underneath. The next one splashed across Adam’s legs, causing him to shriek and duck and try to leap as it came round again. Nigel squeezed his eyes shut and held his arms high, smile tilted back toward the stars.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Adam wasn’t sure whether he was laughing or screaming. For all his efforts, his jumper and pyjama pants were unreservedly soaked, hair leaking into his eyes as he looked up at Nigel.

Nigel took a couple of steps back, standing tall and elated in amongst the mess of it all. As the jets laced above him, a fine mist of spray danced around his clothes, glittering with each leap in the black. It was all moving fast and slow at once, as if the light from the stars really could fall down, an echo of something that happened before the world remembered it.

Except it was happening now. And Adam wanted to remember it forever.

“Kiss me,” he whispered, so soft that he could barely hear it himself.

Nigel stared across at him, eyes unblinking as the water traced over his cheekbones, dripping from his jaw.

Adam could feel himself trembling, all but breathless from standing still. He’d never imagined what the world would look like paused in a single moment, or that it would be so sparkly or weightless or wound up together, until everything burst and collided back to one.

He’d never imagined Nigel could look so vulnerable.

Or that he’d ever know what someone else thought back.

Adam took a couple of steps, sneakers sliding on the dewy ground, gaze fixed where he was going before Nigel steadied him in-between.

“Did you ever imagine being here?” Adam said under his breath, his heart pounding as Nigel dipped his head to rest against Adam’s brow. Up close, Adam could see the tiny flecks of grey and green in Nigel’s eyes, which always seemed so much darker from afar. Behind him, the sprinklers had blurred into sheets of reflected moonlight, the sound of water hitting the grass soothing and constant.

“In university?” Nigel’s eyes flickered to the silhouette of the college as if checking it were still there.

“With me,” Adam answered, his lips making the movements but his throat not quite squeezing out his voice.

A couple of seconds passed before Adam could bear to take another peek, only to see the corner of Nigel’s mouth twitching like they’d just landed detention all over again. Adam brimmed to a smile. Maybe they had.

“Yeah, Adam.” Nigel gave a flinch of his jaw, eyes pooled and words uneven. “’Course I did.”

Adam hovered on tiptoe, which made Nigel’s mouth pinch crooked as he leant further down, nose bumping against Adam’s as he wrapped his arms around the NASA jumper. Adam realised he was still smiling as Nigel’s lips caught soft against his own, warm against the drench of their skin. It was a kiss that pulled him off-balance from the inside-out, gentle and reckless and without hold or pause. It felt like everything he’d never planned, everything that went fast and unchecked and spilled and tumbled, everything that ever mattered. 

Adam didn’t close his eyes like you were supposed to. But Nigel didn’t close his eyes either, collected water droplets shivering on the brink of his lashes. He traced the pad of his thumb against Adam’s cheek, rough and faltering. His tongue grazed the edge of Adam’s, teeth pulled back so he didn’t bite Adam’s lip. He could feel the brush of Nigel’s exhale against the bow of his cheek, slight enough that it nearly tickled.

Adam fumbled a shaky hand behind Nigel’s neck too, wanting to touch his face, but not knowing how. Uncertain, Nigel reached his fingers over Adam’s knuckles, not quite weaving between. Then, slowly, Nigel drew the clasp of their hands to his own cheek, letting Adam’s palm rest over sharp turns and ledges. This time, Adam did close his eyes, his fingertips mapping the contour above Nigel’s eyelids, then the carve of his cheekbones, then the crease of his smile.

Adam blinked his eyes open. Nigel was standing still.

“You’re gonna freeze,” the taller youth mumbled eventually, hugging into him.

“T-too late?” Adam laughed, wondering how long they must’ve been kissing for mud to soak to the halfway-point of both his pyjama legs. He was pretty sure he would’ve continued had they been standing in quicksand.

“Uh-huh.” Nigel stared at him for a second, then braced an arm higher on Adam’s back, his other scooping behind the bend of Adam’s knees. He hoisted Adam up and against his chest with barely an effort, marching determinedly back over the slippery lawn. “Just until we’re off the grass.”

Adam nudged his cheek against the soaked shirt, Nigel’s heartbeat replacing the rhythm of the sprinklers, easing Adam’s to a slower pace. In truth, Adam was pretty sure the grass ended somewhere before his bedroom door, but they both didn’t mention it when Nigel set him down.

“This was the best day,” Adam whispered. Nigel slouched against the wall opposite, grinning and dripping and spent. He drew his hand back to mime a shotgun, aimed and fired.

“Good luck for tomorrow,” he whispered back.

-


	5. After Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s not just a slap on the wrist if you get caught in there.” Nigel’s mouth flinched as they heard a faint whistle, the carefree tune hauntingly out of place. “It’s a big fuckin’ deal.”_
> 
> _Adam gave a single nod._
> 
> _“So is getting through high school.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, getting into the final adventure!! *^^* Really I have so much admiration for writers who update and do multi-chapter stories in general, aaaaa it is tricky!! :3 ♥♥

 

Adam inched his phone from his jeans, holding it at the best possible angle to type and still appear like he was examining the textbook on his desk.

_Now 1 hr to go._

His thumb hovering over the send key, Adam hesitated.

_Please come…_

Swallowing, he hit the tiny arrow icon before he could make any more changes, then forced himself to wait a full two minutes before checking for a response.

Nothing.

Adam bit his lip in despair. It wasn’t unlike Nigel to cut class, but it _was_ unlike Nigel not to write back. Since their road trip to Princeton, Nigel was always making him laugh with silly texts or photos, and had even made him download an app so they could send terribly shaky drawings and stickers to each other. Nigel had also said that Adam could message him no matter what. Especially if it was something important. Not wanting to make his lip bleed again, Adam changed to chewing the lid of his pen instead.

Only one hour until the senior science exam started.

It was important.

_“And for our final assignment this semester, I will ask you to address why genres arise at particular times, and the social and cultural conditions that are conducive to their endurance or recurrence…”_

Adam stared out the window, the view of the school sports shed blurring in and out of focus. Considering what to examine in his essay was easy. Considering what was keeping Nigel was starting to feel very similar to the time he ate the cafeteria special.

_“I will also ask you to assess subversions and transformations within appropriations of genre, resulting in new conventions and understandings of-”_

Adam’s eyes widened, the pen falling from his mouth as he took a gulp of air. In the time it had taken him to blink, Nigel had scaled the steel mesh-fence around the school perimeter and bolted across the lawn like his life depended on it, disappearing behind the sports shed before Adam could process. His heartbeat leaping into his throat, Adam checked his phone again. Fifty- _four_ minutes until the senior science exam started. And Nigel hadn’t looked like study was on his mind.

Not waiting for a break in the teacher’s sentence, Adam stood up. The class fell silent.

“May I please have permission to leave?”

The English Professor stared for longer than Adam hoped. It gave him time to remember that when people requested to depart from a lesson, they usually had a reason.

“Do you have an appointment, Raki?”

“I have… someone I have to meet.” Adam stared at the whiteboard, retrieving the pen from his desk to stop his hands from moving. It wasn’t easy to talk in front of the class as it was, let alone when he hadn’t planned what he would actually say.

“I see.” 

The Professor put down his marker to write out the hall slip, and Adam made it to the front of the room without his legs collapsing beneath him.

“If you can, let me know at the beginning of class next time.”

“Yes,” Adam nodded. “Thank you.”

Tightening the straps of his backpack, he walked as swiftly down the hallway as he could, then made a sharp turn at the side exit next to the noticeboards. As the doors to the main building swung closed, Adam sprinted for the oval with the sort of speed he wished he had on actual athletics carnival days. At first, he thought Nigel must have ducked into the equipment shed, but the door was locked and he could hear a tap running outside. Adam peeked round the corner.

“Nigel?”

Adam stepped forward in surprise. Nigel was knelt next to the fountain where people refilled their drink-bottles, his gaze fixed on the gushing water like he wasn’t really seeing it. His denim jacket was soaked and scrunched into a ball in his hands, jeans mottled with darker patches where he sank against the concrete. His backpack was strewn against the brick wall.

When Nigel didn’t answer, Adam sat next to him in the puddle. It took a few seconds before Nigel seemed to notice him, then stare down at the material dripping between his hands. He dropped it, wrenching the faucet closed.

“Jesus. Adam.” Nigel flinched his head, then raked his hair back from his face and stood up very abruptly. His legs gave way almost just as suddenly, and Adam stumbled to his feet in time to catch him round the waist.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Adam said quickly, his cheek squashed against Nigel’s chest as he struggled to get himself into a better position. Nigel was a lot heavier when he wasn’t standing on his own, his breathing torn and rapid.

“Think I’m going to be sick,” Nigel muttered urgently, the effort of trying to push Adam off unbalancing him further.

“Okay. It’s okay,” Adam nudged his arms further up, so that he wasn’t pressing Nigel’s tummy. “Do you want to try some slow breaths?”

“Wh- no?” Despite all the trembling, Nigel still managed a fairly incredulous look. “You might wanna…”

“It’s alright,” Adam said again. “Just take a moment. You can lean on me if you need to.”

Nigel had turned his head toward Adam’s arm, cheekbone wedged against his shoulder. Adam wasn’t used to being taller, or having Nigel’s hair all messy and ticklish on his face. He smelt vaguely of cigarettes, which Adam liked. But there was something else he couldn’t place. It reminded him of one of the caustic solvents he’d used in science, or when fuel spilt from pumps at the gas station. 

Determined not to sniffle too loudly while he was trying to be reassuring, Adam concentrated on rubbing his palm between Nigel’s shoulder blades. When he felt Nigel’s body unclench a little, he tried the gesture again, making a slow circle over Nigel’s upper back, then continuing when he realised Nigel was no longer shivering as much. His other arm was still gripped around Nigel’s middle, and he could feel Nigel’s chest expand with each inhale, only slightly out of time with his own. Nigel stirred, his jaw grazing across Adam’s cardigan as he turned to lean into Adam’s neck instead. When his muscles started to ache with the weight, Adam ignored it, letting his face rest soft against Nigel’s brow. Nigel glanced up, flickering a weak grin.

“Huh.” He reached a hand to support himself against the brick wall. “I’m ‘right. Must’ve run here too fast or something.”

“Right,” Adam nodded, giving Nigel some space now that he seemed less wobbly. “Well, um, don’t worry, you…”

Adam paused, the words _made it just in time for your science exam_ catching sticky in his throat. His eyes trailed down to the denim jacket Nigel had been washing, tangled limp on the muddy concrete. And then Nigel’s backpack, which, on second glance, appeared to have been slashed from one side to the other, the strap on the left-hand shoulder split from the seams.

Nigel followed his gaze, then snatched the ruined backpack off the ground, glaring toward the fence where he had climbed over. He was still for a moment, then turned back toward the sports equipment shed.

“Hold on.”

His upper lip twitched to a brief snarl, fingers hooking something out of his pocket. At first, Adam thought it was a paperclip. But when Nigel worked it into the rusty door lock, he saw it was a key, the sort with a lot of indents along it like the school janitor carried. The handle clicked open.

Fidgeting with the loose button on his sweater, Adam hovered at the entrance whilst Nigel vanished inside. He inched a step further when he heard a series of banging sounds, and several accompanying curse words.

“Are you trying to find something?” Adam asked, seeing Nigel was already halfway up the shelves with all the baseball gloves and shin-guards. His hand was stretched to the air-ventilation grid, one eye squinted in concentration.

“-hide something,” Nigel managed. He exhaled as the metal cover came unstuck, leaving a dusty opening in the wall. Hoisting the damaged backpack over his head, Nigel stuffed it inside the vent, then eased the grid back in place. There was a smear of black across his nose as he jumped back down to the ground, and neither was the landing very steady. Adam guessed he was still slightly winded, and opened his arms a little, just in case. Nigel smiled. He wasn’t going to fall over, but he pulled Adam into a clumsy sort of hug all the same.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he mumbled. “Even if you don’t fuckin’ move when I say I’m gonna puke.”

Adam squeezed back tighter than he meant to.

“Nigel,” he whispered. “Are you in trouble?”

It took a while for Nigel to respond. Despite the bitter chemical-scent making Adam’s eyes water, he kept his hands fiercely clutched in the back of Nigel’s t-shirt.

“Almost was,” Nigel said quietly. He rearranged his wrist to swipe at his nose, then as if noticing the t-shirt for the first time, took an apologetic step backward and dragged it over his head. “But… yeah. Made it to school, hey?”

“Yes.” 

At the same time Adam felt a weight lift from his chest, he also felt a heat rise to his cheeks. He’d never noticed with the amount of baggy clothing Nigel wore, but without a shirt on, Adam didn’t think he looked like he belonged in school at all.

“Um. Also. Sorry about the… uh. Phone spam. I thought you’d forgotten the science paper.”

“Phone spam?” Nigel looked blank. Then, his face slowly spread to a grin, and he plucked his mobile from his pocket, smiling wider and wider as he realised how many notifications were listed.

“Oh gosh, please delete.” Adam started laughing as Nigel raised an eyebrow, his face feeling positively feverish as Nigel pressed the key to open one. “Delete delete delete, you’ll be late for your exam- _oh my god Nigel_ …!”

He scrambled for the phone as Nigel took a deep breath to read out loud, then cracked up from having Adam wrestle him to the floor. Adam had a feeling Nigel could have fought a bit harder, but he was apparently too amused for his limbs to be much use, and simply held the phone out of reach whilst Adam half-pinned him in a bag of mouldy goal netting.

“It’s cool, it’s cool,” Nigel spluttered with laughter. Despite having successfully straddled Nigel’s waist, Adam realised he hadn’t a hope of stretching for the phone, and wondered if it would be dreadfully bad form to tickle him. “I like your dumb texts, yeah? Even the ones about bloody physics tests.”

Trying to leverage himself without dislodging the rack of water bottles above them, Adam caught a glimpse of Nigel’s screen.

Two minutes until it started.

“You gotta go,” Adam gasped, pitching to his feet. “Like… now. Fast.”

“On it.” Nigel grabbed the closest spare sports jersey, arching his back as he hitched it over his head. Adam kept staring at Nigel’s boots. Two of the same pair today. “Hey?”

Adam peeked up from beneath his hair. Nigel was looking at him strangely.

“Hey… thanks.”

Adam tried to shake his head. He was pretty sure all it achieved was making him look more like a mop.

Nigel had been gone the whole of five seconds before leaning back through the door, one side of his mouth snagged up at the corner.

“Text me later yeah?”

Adam’s mouth dropped open as Nigel winked, raised a hand, then turned and sprinted up to the main building. Fumbling with his mobile, Adam managed to type quick enough to press send before the clock ticked over the hour.

_Consider yourself LUCKY you had to run to that exam!_

-

“I think they look super. I mean it!”

Adam wished he could stop giggling so that the statement would sound more believable, but Claire’s frown kept getting worse and worse every time he tried.

“I’m not sure about this photo. I look like I’m at a funeral.”

Adam liked the photograph. It looked serious, and running for School Council was serious business.

“Maybe the funeral of your enemies…” Adam agreed, pinning one of the flyers over the smiling face of Claire’s debate opponent. She shot him a smirk.

“I guess it could be worse. I could look like the dead body.”

Adam peered at the stack of paper in his arms a bit closer.

“Um, now that you mention it-”

Claire’s eyes widened as Adam couldn’t hold back a guilty grin, ducking as she mimed whacking his arm. Half the flyers went spilling across the hallway as a result.

“Oh shoot.” Adam hugged the rest of them to his chest, trying to crouch between the passing foot traffic. “Sorry, let me-”

Claire bobbed down too, sweeping the mess together so hurriedly that most of them crumpled in her hands.

“No, no, Adam its fine-”

Her voice was a bit tighter than usual, and Adam glanced up in surprise.

“It’s okay, it was my fault-” he started, then tipped his head as he noticed one of the flyers on the bottom of the pile looked different to those on the top. Adam scrunched his nose as he read the title, whilst Claire stopped trying to gather them.

_Claire Standish for Prom Queen- Vote Now!_

Gently, Adam nudged the flyer so that it faced toward them, a much brighter and more enthusiastic photograph of Claire smiling back, along with squiggly text illustrating all the extra-curricular activities she was involved with.

“I didn’t know you were running for Prom Queen?” Adam ventured.

“I’m not,” Claire said tersely. “I mean, I might be. I haven’t decided yet.” Claire glared at the flyer for a moment, then scooped it into her hands and stood up. “Anyway. Thanks for, like, helping me with these. We’d better get to class.”

Adam blinked at the single flyer he had pinned in confusion.

“I have a free?”

“Oh! Uh. Well. _I’d_ better get to class!”

“You also have a free.”

Claire stopped fidgeting and looked at Adam without speaking. For a moment, Adam wondered if they were having a staring competition, until Claire crossed her arms and slouched against the notice board. Slowly, Adam shuffled his backpack from his shoulders, then tentatively leaned beside her.

“Do you not want me to know about the Prom Queen thing?”

Claire squinted at the wall opposite.

“No. I don’t know,” she said eventually. “It’s not like you wouldn’t see the posters if I put them up. It’s just, like... you know.”

“You’re worried you won’t win?”

It was Adam’s understanding that the yearly prom ceremony was more competitive than any of the School Council debates, the decision-making process far more elusive. But Claire had always been the sort of person who people wanted to talk to, and in truth, Adam didn’t think she needed any flyers.

“I’m worried you’ll think it’s obnoxious,” Claire sighed. “It’s basically a massive popularity wank, which hey, I mean, not like real politics _isn’t_ , but,” she twisted one of her necklaces between her fingers, toying with the heart-shaped pendant, “lately I’ve just been thinking…”

Adam nodded while she spoke. Claire lowered her voice, resting her chin on her hand. 

“…that I’m not really into some of this stuff anymore?”

Frowning down the corridor, Adam waited until a group of juniors had passed before continuing.

“It’s okay to not be into stuff,” he said quietly. “You don’t even have to _go_ to the prom, if you don’t want to.”

“Believe me, when you have my friends, you do.” Claire rolled her eyes, forcing a laugh.

Trying to rearrange himself so that he wasn’t squashing the Theatre Club’s Macbeth mood board, Adam couldn’t help feel he was the last person to give advice on social groups or popularity contests. But then again, Claire already understood both of those things perfectly. And… maybe that wasn’t why she was anxious.

“This is my first prom,” he started, swallowing as Claire gave him a cautious nod. “Also, in all likelihood, my last prom. So. Um. The year we started junior high together…”

Claire turned to face him more, thumb gently worrying her lip.

“…I thought you were the scariest, snobbiest and most sarcastic person I’d ever met.”

Claire snorted with laughter, and Adam tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t working.

“And that last one doesn’t make things easy for me, by the way.” He wrinkled his nose as Claire kept shaking her head in amusement. “But now that we hang out and I have found all these things are most definitely true-”

Adam started giggling as Claire’s mouth fell ajar, then had to wave his hands as _a let me finish, let me finish_.

“-I don’t think it would feel like a graduation if you didn’t take it out.”

They stood mirroring each other’s smiles, until Claire finally tossed a curl over her shoulder, cheeks flushing a light shade of pink.

“Adam…”

He was already pinning a Prom Queen flyer next to the School Council flyer.

“…you know you’re the worst, right?”

Adam tried not to smile again. It didn’t work. Again. “You’re my worst friend too, Claire.”

Claire grinned at him for a long time, then picked up the blue-tack and started re-ordering the flyers. “If I’m really running for this, you’d at least better be inviting Nigel.”

Adam paused for a second, then inwardly crossed his fingers. “So… you two aren’t going together anymore?”

“What? No!” Claire looked at him in surprise. “I thought you already knew. Me and Andrew are kind of a thing now!”

Adam let out the breath he had been holding, feeling silly and happy at once.

“Okay, I mean, I _thought_ that was happening, but…” Adam laughed as Claire gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed _oh-it’s-happening_ while he was floundering over the words. “You know, just in case! That time I went to Nigel’s house, he said that you were going as friends.”

“Well, now you can go as more-than-friends,” Claire teased, squealing as Adam poked her in the side. They pinned a few more flyers between meaningful sidelong glances, before Claire gave an indiscernible frown, her tone something toward curious.

“You went to Nigel’s house?”

“When he was suspended.” Adam nodded. “I cycled over after I asked you about it at school.”

“Right…” Claire looked confused. But then, just as quickly she shook her head. “Sorry, I’m being weird. It’s just… I thought his parents sold that house. Or, had to sell it, or something. But maybe it all got fixed.” She gave Adam an apologetic smile. “I guess it must’ve.”

-

Adam had arranged to meet Nigel in the library after school. They also said they were going to get a four-cheese pizza together. He wondered if that was the sort of occasion where you might hold someone’s hand. Or, if maybe Nigel wouldn’t want to wear the sports jersey outside of school, so he’d have to take it off again to change into something else…

Adam opened his eyes. His head was nestled in his history textbook, the timeline of Genghis Khan’s greatest victories stuck to his mouth where he had dribbled. And Nigel was slouched against the aisle of books opposite, one eyebrow raised with the turn of his mouth.

“Whoops,” Adam could feel himself blushing violently, fumbling to get the book closed and subtly wipe his cheek at the same time. “Um. How was the exam?”

Nigel whistled and dive-bombed his hand southward, miming a bang on landing.

“I’m guessing that’s, ah, a crash, rather than festive fireworks?” Adam gave a sleepy grin, his stomach whining to remind him of their dinner plans.

“More like a fuckin’ testing zone for nukes, but hey,” Nigel picked up Adam’s schoolbag for him, absentmindedly slinging it over his shoulder as they headed for the exit, “whatcha gonna do.”

“As long as you answered as much as you could, there’s still time to prep for the English paper.” Adam agreed. Seeing Nigel carrying his bag was filling his chest with butterflies, and he almost tripped on the step outside. “Two non-attempts and you don’t get a final score. Even if you do really well in everything else.”

It took him a couple of seconds to realise Nigel had stopped walking.

“What do you mean, two _non-attempts?_ ”

“Two… blank papers,” Adam tried, getting an odd sinking feeling as Nigel’s mouth curled uneven. “You know… when you don’t answer any questions on a test. And then you… get an unranked score overall?”

“I know what a fucking blank paper is, Adam,” Nigel spat, kicking the library door closed with more force than necessary. “When the fuck did I say I submitted one?”

“You didn’t,” Adam replied, his tongue feeling dry and clingy as he realised his mistake. “Okay. I… think I should have told you something before.”

Adam tugged the sleeves of his cardigan over his hands, his voice faltering in the empty hallway. Nigel reached for a cigarette, the packet shiny and white in the shadows.

“The last time I was in the Principal’s office, the folder with all the senior math papers was there. And I saw your completed exam.”

Adam waited for Nigel to say something, but he just stared, twitching vaguely aside to exhale the smoke.

“And… I saw that there was nothing on it.”

Nigel kept staring, his jaw hard and still as he drew on the burning paper. Then, flicking the butt onto the library steps, he cursed and set off down the hallway, his boot colliding with a spare chair that happened to be in his way.

“I don’t care!” Adam yelled after, his shout drowned by the clatter of plastic against the polished lino. “It wasn’t my business to look!”

Nigel punched his fist against the school notice board, then swerved round the corner as a few of the notes fluttered to the ground. It occurred to Adam that the Principal’s office was also in that direction, and suddenly he found himself bolting after.

“Nigel!”

The older student hadn’t even broken a jog, and was somehow already at the next set of stairs by the time Adam had reached the first turn.

“It doesn’t matter to me!”

Nigel glared at him from the stairwell, the glow of the fire exit sign tearing him dark and bright at once. He looked much like he did the night Adam saw him dragged away.

“Do you really think I don’t give a fuck?” he said quietly.

“No,” Adam puffed as he caught up. The word sounded lost and strangled, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“You know it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, right?”

Nigel’s smile pulled like a scar across his mouth. Adam shook his head.

“You’re on another planet if you think I ever had a chance. But yeah, I could be fucking bothered to turn up and write some shit down. You know why? Why it fucking mattered to me?”

Adam could only shake his head again. Nigel scowled down the passage, narrowing where the security light licked the office door. He sucked his tongue over his teeth as if it hurt to swallow.

“…forget it.”

Not meeting Adam’s eyes, Nigel walked past him the way they had come. Adam waited for him to look back. He didn’t.

“Give me the key,” Adam whispered.

Nigel paused. From the upper levels, the distant slam of a door echoed through the silence. Adam’s voice was as shaky as the rest of him, but he took another gulp of air.

“May I please have the janitor’s key,” Adam repeated, slightly less husky. “The one you used to open the sports shed.”

Wordless, Nigel’s hand dipped into his jeans.

“You still need proof huh.”

“No,” Adam croaked, palm closing tight around the metal. The sound of footsteps clipped heavy above them. “What I need, is as much time as possible.”

“It’s not just a slap on the wrist if you get caught in there.” Nigel’s mouth flinched as they heard a faint whistle, the carefree tune hauntingly out of place. “It’s a big fuckin’ deal.”

Adam gave a single nod.

“So is getting through high school.”

Nigel stared at him, unmoving. Then, he took a step backward, followed by another. It was with a last bristling glance at the Principal’s office that he turned and pelted down the hallway, waiting until he had rounded the bend to the school gymnasium before yelling at the top of his lungs, drumming his hand along the lockers so that all the doors swung open as he ran.

The footsteps stopped. Adam heard a muttered curse, and the head teacher’s familiar hissing tone.

“ _Vilkas!_ ”

There was a squeak of a shoe spinning on its heel, then a flurry of steps travelling back the way they came. Adam thrust the key into the door handle, quivering it left and right. The lock gave a reluctant click, and Adam lurched into the office, hands fumbling for his phone to use as a torch. There wasn’t enough light to close the door completely, and it was too much of a risk to turn on the fluorescents. From the other side of the school, Adam could hear the thump and rattle of a basketball bouncing against the hoop, Nigel’s triumphant shout a moment after.

“ _Tests, tests, tests_ ,” Adam muttered to himself, the beam cast by his phone dancing all over the place as his fingers trembled. On his last visit, the completed exams had been in a folder in the middle of the desk. This time, the only papers stacked next to the Principal’s computer seemed to be a series of printouts on finding your inner millionaire. Adam tried the drawers, finding nothing but cluttered stationary. He sucked at his lip, distraught. If the exams had already been sent to the Board of Studies for independent assessment, then he was too late.

“ _Vilkas! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?_ ”

Even several floors away, the bellow made Adam jump, and he dropped his cell phone, the light spinning over the ceiling as it hit the edge of the desk. Accidentally knocking over the wastepaper bin as he knelt to retrieve it, Adam tried not to let his emotions overwhelm him. He didn’t have time to calm himself down, and concentrated his frustration on furiously shoving all the scrap paper back into the can. His breath coming dizzyingly short, Adam flashed the phone screen under the desk to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

“ _You think this school is your personal playground? You know where kids like you end up?”_

Adam gritted his teeth as the voices from the gymnasium rang out clear as day. Then, slowly, his gaze turned back to the papers in the trash. There was one that was several pages thick, and had been scrunched into a ball.

“ _Nowhere! Absolutely nowhere, that’s where!_ ”

Rocking gently back and forth, Adam smoothed it out over his lap, his fingers shivering at the top-right corner, and the scrawled name he could only just make out.

Vilkas, Nigel- PHYS4H

He held it up, the assorted marks on the multiple choice section swimming in front of him. The second and third pages were all free-text response. And, while Nigel really did give new meaning to the phrase ‘short answer questions’… most did at least have a few words. Adam squeezed shut his eyes. He didn’t even notice there was no longer any shouting coming from the gymnasium.

Without the office or the lights, Adam sank beneath the pulse rushing at his eardrums. He could hear the strange creaks of the air conditioning units which were never that obvious during class. The room smelt damp and mouldy, and also of cologne, and Adam could feel sweat beading on his upper lip despite the cool. He was calm, and thinking straight.

And there was still nothing he could do.

Softly, Adam scrunched the paper back between his hands, his chest aching with every crease.

“Move it Vilkas, if you aren’t down these stairs in the next sixty seconds, it’ll be another suspension.”

Adam opened his eyes, his heartbeat clawing at his windpipe. Reeling to his feet, he wondered if there was enough room for him to hide behind the door, or whether it wasn’t worse getting caught hiding than being in the office in the first place. The Principal’s coat was hanging there anyway, which he might’ve wanted to take with him. And his satchel too. Adam took a step forward, squinting at the bag. Poking out was a large envelope.

Adam dashed across the room, letting out a sob of relief when he realised it was unsealed. He edged the papers out just enough to flick through the names. This time, the blank paper in place of Nigel’s was at the very end, no one else having a surname that fell later than ‘V’. Adam was almost grateful for the feeling of anger that welled at his stomach. It helped him ignore the fact that he was utterly terrified.

Flattening Nigel’s actual test out one last time, Adam tried to make the pages as uniform as possible before wriggling it inside with the others. Then, deciding some risks outweighed the alternative, hurriedly licked the strip of the envelope and sealed it shut. The blank paper he jammed next to his phone in his jeans, then slipped out the door and into the hallway.

“Sir, before we get to your office, I just wanted to take the opportunity to apologise for my earlier behaviour-”

“Cut the crap, Vilkas, this is another note in your file with or without.”

Easing the door closed behind him, Adam jostled the key to get it out of the lock. To his horror, it was stuck at the joint. Wrestling with the handle, he tried tugging it gently, then more urgently. When that didn’t work, Adam attempted to remove it at different angles, working it first to the left, then the right. The key remained firmly in place. As the footsteps descended the stairs, Adam started yanking at it with everything he had, the door making unexpected rattling noise with his vigorous attempts.

“Push it in, then pull it out!” Nigel yelled suddenly, making Adam stop still.

“I beg your pardon?” the teacher hissed, livid.

“Just some advice to help you loosen up, sir.”

Adam held his breath. Carefully, he pushed into the lock until he heard a firm click, then steadily withdrew. His legs turned to jelly as the key fell into his palm, and he collapsed against the wall opposite.

Principal Vernon stormed around the corner, Nigel swinging after in alarm. His face crumpled with relief when he saw Adam. The head teacher’s sparkled with interest.

“Well. Quite the night for spontaneous after-school strolls, isn’t it?”

“Given the three of us, um, all coincidentally happen to be walking around the school at what would be considered a late hour-”

“The question is rhetorical, Raki,” the Principal snapped. “That’ll be detention for you too.”

Fishing into his pocket, he took out his own set of keys and unlocked the office door without issue. Adam exhaled a lungful of air, meekly holding out his palm a moment later as the teacher returned with two detention slips.

“See you Saturday,” Nigel muttered, scrunching his without looking at it.

“Oh, no.” The Principal’s tone dropped to a friendly simmer. “I think Saturday is a bit too harsh. After all, you did apologise.”

Nigel stared at him, wary.

“It’ll just be a regular after-school, next Friday.”

“But next Friday’s the prom,” Adam blurted, wishing the second after that he hadn’t. Not only was the teacher staring at him, but Nigel too. It wasn’t like it mattered. Or that he was going with anyone. Or… that he might have been brave enough to ask. It wasn’t like they would have said yes anyway.

“Correct, Raki.” 

Adam blinked, a flush prickling his cheeks.

“Looks like one of you might pass this year after all.”

Adam kept his eyes on his shoes as they scuffed toward the nearest exit. If anything, the event would have been incredibly embarrassing. It was the type of situation where you had to act formal and social at once, wear very unmovable clothing, and eat a lot of bite-sized foods he didn’t like. Worst of all, you also had to know how to dance. Adam kept telling himself all of these things until the doors to the main building rolled shut behind them, and they both keeled over breathless.

“Fucking fucking _fucking_ hell,” Nigel choked, pulling Adam into a fierce hug. Adam clung around his neck, a laugh squashed against Nigel’s shoulder.

“We did it,” he whispered. “I think you’re still in with a chance.”

“ _You_ did it,” Nigel mumbled back. “Now I goddamn wish I knew one fuckin’ thing about physics.”

“Push it in and pull it out is a good start,” Adam sniffled, grinning more when Nigel laughed.

“Yeah. Should’ve probably told you that before.”

“I should have told you the other thing before,” Adam moaned, “and then we could have tried to save your math paper.”

“Darling…” Nigel straightened up so Adam’s feet were almost off the ground. He didn’t say any more, but squeezed Adam a lot tighter.

“What are you thinking?” Adam wavered. “This is one of those times when I really can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

Gently, Nigel placed him down, then leaned back a fraction so that they could see each other. His fingers stretched for Adam’s, then threaded in between. Tucking Adam’s hand against his mouth, he kissed rough against his knuckles.

“Wanted to ask you something. Kind of won’t matter now though.”

“It does matter,” Adam said, sincere. When Nigel gave a crooked grin, Adam brimmed to a smile. “And, even if it doesn’t, I’m really really curious?”

Nigel laughed, breathing warm against his skin. He met Adam’s eyes.

“Come to the dance with me,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck who’s watching, or talking, or whatever.” Nigel clutched his hand like they would both fall apart. “Be my partner.”

Adam wanted to kiss his knuckles back, or his mouth, or do something except possibly look like he was going to burst into tears.

“Just for one night?”

Nigel shook his head.

“Not just for one night.”

“Then yes,” Adam whispered. “Because otherwise I think I’d have to wear my uncomfortable suit forever.”

Nigel tried to stop smiling. When that failed, he managed a wink in between.

“You do know I’m not turning up to detention in a fucking suit right?”

Adam shrugged, then stood on tiptoe for a kiss.

“Even if you don’t,” he said, “I’ll still make you dance in the library like no-one’s watching.”

-

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :3 Comments are adored and appreciated, or, [say hello to me on tumblr!](http://taeaelin.tumblr.com/)


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